


Tried to do headstands for you (every time I fell on you)

by popsongnation



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Kink Discovery, M/M, Mild Painplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 03:48:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5524286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popsongnation/pseuds/popsongnation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m not always this clumsy and accident prone, I swear,” Dan says, and maybe he’s lying, but Phil doesn’t have to know that. How hard can it be not to injure yourself at a coffee shop? He just needs to remember which way the doors open, and buy new shoes. He’ll be fine. </p>
<p>Or: coffee shop/uni AU in which Dan keeps injuring himself in increasingly ridiculous ways, Phil regularly has to patch him up, and it’s Christmas time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tried to do headstands for you (every time I fell on you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [featherliterature](https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherliterature/gifts).



> Wohooo! I can't believe this is done! This fic started out small and quickly grew into a monster. 
> 
> Thanks goes to my best friend [internallyinconsistent](http://internallyinconsistent.tumblr.com/) on tumblr for being the first to read it in it's entirety, saying nice things about it and giving me pointers, [internetakeover](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nymeriahale/pseuds/internetakeover) for britpick and putting up with my insecurities, [adventuring](http://archiveofourown.org/users/adventuring) for going through my entire plot with me, [abriata](http://archiveofourown.org/users/abriata) for handholding and spiritual guidance and everyone on Twitter for sitting through me liveblogging my entire writing process (read: whining. A lot.)
> 
> All remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title from _Bruises_ by Chairlift, even though it's not seasonal, because it amused me too much not to use.
> 
> Merry Christmas [featherliterature](http://archiveofourown.org/users/featherliterature)! I hope you like it. <3
> 
> ETA: Fixed an HTML error that caused a small paragraph to disappear; that's why you don't edit at 3am.
> 
>  
> 
> Russian translation available!

Dan’s shoes are soggy, and he really should have put on a coat. It had been fine so far, going from building to building all day, and with 300 people in a lecture hall the space heats up fast, so there’s really no point in a coat or scarf. But now that he’s outside for more than five minutes at a time he quickly starts shivering, and his feet feel cold and wet as he trudges through the sludge the icy rain that's been coming down on and off this week has turned the walkways into, and he remembers that this pair of Converse has actual holes in them. Fuck. 

It’s the beginning of December, so even though it’s only 4pm, the lamps lining the pathway are already flickering on as he walks across campus. The coffee shop near the B building looks warm and inviting even from here. Dan hopes there won’t be too many people inside; nothing makes asking for a job more awkward than a long line behind you and a frazzled barista. 

When he reaches the door he takes a moment to take a deep breath and try to turn his brain off. Responsible Adult Autopilot should be able to take care of this, if it’s currently available. Whenever Dan really needs it, there are crossed wires. 

It’s a pull door, so of course he pushes, hitting his head just hard enough to hurt. Hopefully no one has seen that. One more deep breath, and he pulls the handle, and is engulfed in a gust of sweet, coffee-and-biscuits scented air immediately. 

Dan’s been inside maybe two times before to get his caffeine fix before lectures. It’s a nice, cozy place, a tad smaller than your regular Starbucks. There’s about eight square two-person tables scattered across the room, plus two brown plush couches by the windows. The blackboard over the counter with the menu on it, hand-written lovingly in white, looping script, completes the picture.

There are quite a few people sitting at tables, but luckily no line at the counter. Dan quickly tries to fix his hair as much as he can without a mirror, then walks up to it. 

The barista has his back to him, doing something to the coffeemaker set up behind the counter. He’s hunched down, black hair falling in his face. Dan watches for a moment as he refills the milk, awkwardly hovering, before he clears his throat. “Hi?”

“One second, sorry!” The barista closes the milk compartment before turning around, standing up to his full height. He’s got to be as tall as Dan, or almost. He’s got a fringe like Dan’s, too. _Phil_ , his nametag reads. 

“I’m sorry, I’m the only one here tonight, Ellie’s got the flu,” he apologises, smiling. “What would you like to order?”

“I, um, actually, I’m here for the job? There was a sign,” Dan waves a hand in the direction of the door, only now realising that he hadn’t checked if it was still there this evening. It had been that morning, but someone else might’ve come in in the meantime. 

“Oh, you want to work here? That’s great! Christmas season gets crazy, we need all the help we can get,” Phil says. 

Dan had been kind of banking on that, since he’s never worked in food preparation and his resume is less than stellar. Selling axes to twelve-year-olds doesn’t open a lot of doors. 

“That was easy,” he blurts. And promptly wants to die. “Um. I mean?” 

Phil just laughs. “ _Technically_ I’m not allowed to make personnel decisions,” he says, with an exaggerated shifty-eyed expression. “ _But_ , if you’ve got time, you can work a probationary shift right now and I put in a good word for you with the manager tomorrow?”

Dan immediately agrees, because if that gets rid of the resume issue, he’s fine with free labour. This shift seems to be fairly uneventful, and Phil is cute.

-

Phil is _evil_. 

Dan should have known, really, just from the way he smiled when he handed him an apron and said: “Great, you can keep me company.”

Only thirty minutes later the coffee shop is packed, and the line to the counter starts before the front door. They’ve run out of pumpkin spice cookies, which means Phil had to go all the way to the back to put a new batch in the oven, so Dan is juggling the counter, collecting dirty dishes and wiping tables, and making about three coffee orders at the same time.

“Shouldn’t there be marshmallows in there?” a girl asks, frowning at her hot chocolate. 

“Um?” Dan has no idea where the marshmallows are hidden. This might cause mutiny. 

“Yes, I’m sorry, I’ll be right back,” he says, and the guy behind the girl in line groans loudly, not taking his eyes off his phone. Rude. Never mind that Dan’s pretty sure he’s been that guy before. It will never happen again, he swears. 

The door to the back room isn’t as heavy as it looks, which Dan finds out the hard way, when he opens it too enthusiastically and inadvertently smacks himself in the face. He enters the back cursing. 

“FUCKING HELL! Phil!”

Phil looks a little alarmed from where he’s putting a tray in the oven. “Dan? You’re not quitting already, are you?”

Dan grits his teeth. “No. Although you could have warned me.”

“Hey! I said Christmas season was crazy!” He looks legitimately put out, and although it could be an act, Dan wouldn’t put it past him, he’s not willing to sacrifice his shot at a job just yet. 

“Sorry, I wasn’t swearing at you. The door hit me in the face,” he grumbles. 

Phil grins. “On its own?"

“ _Yes_ , it’s possessed. You should get that checked out.” He’s not pouting, he’s not. 

“I will perform an exorcism immediately. Did you come in here to tell me that?”

“No, I, um, can’t find the marshmallows?” Dan says, suddenly remembering the mayhem out front and that he needs to get back before war breaks out. 

“There should be some under the counter on the right. Wait,” Phil says, blindly reaching into one of the boxes that are stacked up by the wall and pulling out a new package, “here, have this, just in case you run out.” He throws it to Dan, who scrambles to catch it, but he manages. 

Phil smiles at him, more kindly this time. “I’ll be right back with you in a second, just hold the fort down until then, okay?”

“Okay, um, thanks.” Dan smiles back a little uncertainly, he doesn’t want to be lulled into a false sense of security again. 

He turns to the door, taking a deep breath before jumping back into the fray. 

-

By the time they are locking up, Dan’s hair has gone curly from the humidity, and he feels ready to fall face forward into bed and sleep for a year. No coursework for him tonight, but at least he’ll get to sleep at a reasonable time for a change so he can start the next day with a full eight hours of sleep behind him, maybe. 

Phil’s told him he can go home, but instead Dan finds himself sitting on the counter, watching Phil put the chairs on the tables and mop the floor, as he munches on a pumpkin spice cookie. After the day he’s had, he deserves it, especially as he still doesn’t know if he’s got the job. 

He’s not leaving here without confirmation his sacrifice has paid off. It’s got nothing at all to do with watching Phil’s arse when he bends down to pick up a chair, or that Dan finds it cute that he’s humming the Pokémon theme song to himself.

“So, did I get it? You weren’t having me on when you said you’d put a word in with the manager if I helped out, were you?” 

Phil stops humming and turns to look at him. “Of course you got it, right before exams is the worst time to find someone new, plus, you know, Christmas.”

Dan’s hand that’s holding another cookie stops dead before it reaches his mouth. “You’re _fucking_ kidding me.”

Phil just smiles sunnily. “Don’t eat all the cookies. We’re selling those, you know.” 

Dan raises his eyebrows before stuffing the cookie into his mouth whole. He chews loudly, then opens his mouth to show off the mush within. 

“Gross,” Phil comments, still smiling. 

Dan swallows, and licks his lips obnoxiously. “So I’ll sign a contract when, tomorrow?”

“Yeah, be here before eight, Josh should be in. Tell him I sent you, you’ll get it,” Phil says. He’s stopped mopping and is looking at Dan unblinkingly. It’s a tad unsettling. 

“Just like that?” Dan’s trust quota has run out for today.

Phil shrugs. “I’ve worked here for three years, I make half the employee decisions.”

“Sounds like nepotism.” Dan hops off the counter, meaning to make a dignified and dramatic exit. 

He slips almost immediately, his worn down shoes finding no purchase on the wet floor, and falls flat on his arse. This could literally not have gone worse. He groans and lies back on the floor, covering his face with his hands.

Suddenly, Phil’s by his side. “Dan? Are you okay?”

He sounds legitimately concerned, and somehow that’s worse than if he was laughing. 

“Kill me,” Dan mumbles through his fingers. 

“Seriously are you okay? Do you have a concussion?” His fingers brush Dan’s head, lightly, like he’s afraid to injure him further. 

“No, just a very wet arse and a bruised ego,” he says, still through his fingers.

Phil laughs softly at that, but doesn’t move away. Dan pulls his hands from his face and opens his eyes to look at him. Phil is very close, and his eyes are very wide. From this close Dan can see that they’re like three colours, blue and green and a little yellow in between. 

“Do you ever blink?” he asks. 

Phil blinks. “Are you sure? You’ve hit your head three times now.”

Dan’s not about to admit that he’s just a dramatic twat who’d rather stay on the floor than get back up. “Of course you saw that,” he mutters. “Just my luck.”

The corner of Phil’s mouth lifts, but he’s not to be distracted, it seems. “Come on, I’ll get you some ice,” he says, reaching out a hand to help Dan to his feet. Dan is secretly grateful, because the floor is still slippery and his shoes are shit. Phil holds on to him all the way behind the counter, and Dan lets him. Just because he’s pretending to maybe have a concussion, of course, and for no other reason. 

Dan stays until Phil is done cleaning, icing his perfectly fine head and eating another ten or so cookies. Phil even makes him a hot chocolate (with marshmallows), which he would have refused if not for the fact that he kind of had a hellish day. Oh, who is he kidding, he wouldn’t have refused free hot chocolate under any circumstance ever.

Phil lays a hand on his arm on the way to the door, like he’s afraid Dan will fall again. Dan really wants to mind more than he does. 

“I’m not always this clumsy and accident prone, I swear,” he says awkwardly, as Phil pulls out a truly enormous keyring and locks the door behind them. It’s got at least three well-worn plush charms on it. 

And maybe he’s lying, but Phil doesn’t have to know that. How hard can it be not to injure yourself at a coffee shop? He just needs to remember which way the doors open, and buy new shoes. He’ll be fine. 

-

He’s very much not fine. 

“How did you even _manage_ that?” Phil asks as he fastens an ice pack to Dan’s arm with a makeshift bandage made from a wet dish towel. Dan shrugs, immediately regretting the motion, wincing as Phil’s fingers skim the burn. 

“I am tall and uncoordinated?” he tries. Phil doesn’t look impressed. The accident had included a jug of freshly steamed milk, two undone shoelaces, and a good helping of bad luck. 

“ _I_ am tall and uncoordinated. _You_ are a health hazard,” Phil says. He tugs the bandage taut and runs a finger over it lightly, as if to test its hold. It still smarts, but muted, and the contact is not all unpleasant. 

“There. You’re all patched up,” Phil says, letting go of Dan. “Back to work.”

Dan sighs melodramatically, but grabs a mop to clean up the mess he made. 

When he’d turned up that day at an ungodly hour (that’s what 8am is, thank you very much), Josh, a middle aged man apparently too busy for both shaving and social niceties, had been expecting him. He handed Dan a contract without even asking for his ID to prove his identity.

“You’re tall clumsy fringe kid, I assume?” was his greeting. 

“Dan,” Dan had said, a bit petulantly maybe, wondering what exactly Phil had told him. He refrained from pointing out that he hadn’t fallen down yet, so the clumsy part was all hearsay. 

After, he’d skipped Property Law in order to buy new shoes before going into work. A whole lot of good that did him. The shoelaces on his old shoes had been so crusty they couldn’t be pried apart, which, while disgusting, kept them from coming loose at a 100% success rate. The new shoes don’t share that feature. 

As he reties them, making five knots each just for good measure, he vows that will be his last mishap. 

-

It’s not. 

The very next day Dan burns his hand when he pulls a tray of biscuits out of the oven. 

.03 seconds later Phil sticks his head in the door. “Are you okay?” He sounds alarmed. 

“Absolutely wonderful,” Dan says, through clenched teeth. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You screeched like a dying goose,” Phil points out, still hovering in the doorway. Dan pulls his sleeves over his hands as inconspicuously as he can manage while also scooping up some biscuits that had fallen off the tray.

“Do geese screech when they’re dying?” he asks. “More importantly, how would you know that?”

“ _Dan_.”

“Seriously are you a goose murderer? Because if so I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this work environment,” he carries on. He’s looking around for the oven gloves so he can maybe get the tray out front and end this conversation, and only notices Phil’s moved when the door snicks shut behind him.

When he looks up, Phil is standing right in front of him, close enough Dan can smell his aftershave over the scent of freshly baked biscuits.

“Dan,” he says again. His fingers settle lightly on Dan’s shoulders. Dan opens his mouth, planning to fire off another sarcastic distraction, maybe something about the goose killer coming for him, but he never gets there. Phil’s fingers trace down his arms, just as lightly, in a sweeping motion, until they reach his hands. Very, very gently, Phil pulls up Dan’s sleeves, uncovering the burn. 

Dan swallows, looking down to where Phil is now holding his right hand in both of his. 

“Let me get you some ice for that,” Phil says simply. 

Dan figures there’s no point in arguing. “Okay.”

When Phil lets go of him to go fetch the ice, the phantom touch lingers.

-

He doesn’t have any afternoon classes Thursdays, so he works his next shift next to Ellie, who returns from sick leave still sniffling. Dan hopes she won’t infect him, getting a cold is the last thing he needs right now. There’s coursework piling up, and generally his coordination rarely improves when he’s sick. 

The first half of their shift is calm and spent mostly unloading the dishwasher and putting mugs back to their proper place on the shelves instead of right into waiting customer’s hands, and chatting, in between taking turns making drinks for the people that do come in at this time of day. 

Ellie’s got blue hair and a boyfriend in London who was meant to visit last weekend but then they both got sick and spent the weekend bemoaning their lives on Skype instead. Dan, who is single and doesn’t have any cute relationship stories to share (he doesn’t think his ex-girlfriend’s parents walking in on them counts or is appropriate small talk material), defaults to complaining about Law. Ellie, who studies social work, is more gleeful than sympathetic. 

“I can’t picture you as a lawyer,” she says, fixing her ponytail. “Maybe it’s the fringe.” 

Dan laughs, like he isn’t questioning all of his life choices and more. 

Around four, the steady stream of customers picks up, and things get decidedly more hectic. 

“Rush hour,” Ellie says as she steams some milk, though it doesn’t really warrant explanation. “Things’ll cool down in an hour or so, and then it gets crazy again at sevenish.”

“I know, I’ve worked that shift before,” he turns to the guy at the counter, “Hello, what can I get you?”

Apparently everything on the menu, as his friends are hogging a table in the back and he’s been sent to get all ten of them drinks. 

“Oh, did Phil do the thing to you?” she asks with a laugh, as Dan scrambles to make three skim milk toffee lattes at once. She doesn’t elaborate further, but he can guess. 

“The probationary shift during hell hour? Yes. It’s a _thing_?” He looks up from the milk jug and promptly regrets it as it spills over.

She nods sagely. “Trial by fire. With a _ph_.”

She must be telepathic, because he doesn’t turn around and still she says: “Don’t look at me like that, that’s what _he_ calls it.”

Dan snorts. “Of course.”

Once all the drinks have been assembled, Dan watches as ten-drinks-guy balances his overloaded tray back to his friends, hoping like hell he won’t stumble and spill all of it over the floor. Dan can already see himself mopping it all up as people try to squeeze past him. Thankfully, that doesn’t happen.

All in all, his shift goes well. He burns himself on the steamer wand twice, but manages to not screech like a dying goose, so Ellie doesn’t notice. It’s nice to have at least one coworker who thinks he’s semi-capable, and he’d like to keep that charade up for a while. 

At four, Phil comes in to take over, and Dan gladly hands him his apron. 

“Either of you want to stick around to keep me company?” Phil asks with a cheeky grin. “No? Shame, this one should be fun!”

Ellie laughs, gathering her things. “I’m sorry, we have served our time.”

“Law is calling,” Dan agrees, though he’ll probably watch anime for an hour and pass out in front of his laptop first thing upon getting to his room, and not wake up, let alone do any work, until 2am. His sleep schedule is fucked. His homework schedule is even more so. 

When they’re out the door, he turns to Ellie, who is cleaning her fogged up glasses with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Is he seriously going to work that shift alone?”

“Oh yeah, we’re dreadfully understaffed. He can handle it though, he’s been here forever. No idea how we’ll cope without him though.”

Dan feels a stab of something in his stomach. “He’s leaving?”

Ellie hums, pulling her phone out and scrolling through her notifications as she starts walking towards campus, swerving to circumvent a lamp post without looking up. Dan is honestly impressed with her coordination, he’d have walked straight into it. 

“He’s gonna start working on his Master’s thesis after winter hols. I mean, he’s working on it already, I guess, but yeah. Dunno how we’ll replace him, honestly.”

“Oh,” Dan says, suddenly much colder than a minute ago. “That sucks.” 

And that’s how he realises he may have a crush on Phil. Fuck.

-

The next day, Dan tells Phil he wants a double shift next Thursday.

“You can make that happen, right?” he asks. “Or do I need to talk to Josh?”

“No, it’s fine, I’ll handle it,” Phil says, eyeing Dan speculatively. “Don’t you need to do coursework though?”

“I need to earn money,” Dan says. “And I thought you wanted company?” He means to sound sarcastic, but feels like he missed the mark a bit. 

Phil chuckles. “Hey, I’m not complaining, it’s your funeral.”

Dan huffs and turns back to stacking the dishwasher.

-

The coffee shop is closed Sundays, but Starbucks isn’t. Not that Dan would bring his overdue coursework to his workplace anyway, that would just be awkward. Ideally, Dan would go to the library, but there’s something about noise and people and the accessibility of caffeine whenever he wants it that appeals to him more than the oppressive quiet of the campus library. 

And he had just spent three hours there the night before, staring at a blank document in front of him and checking Twitter more frequently than strictly necessary and had got nothing done. Mixing things up can’t hurt.

He orders a Toffee Nut Latte, drops some coins in the tip jar, and goes to work.

An hour later he is guiltily browsing Reddit when someone taps his shoulder. He makes an undignified noise and turns to see Phil laughing at his flailing. Business as usual, then. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Phil says, still chuckling, which takes away from his apology a bit. 

Dan pulls a face. “Fancy meeting you here,” he says, looking Phil up and down. He’s bundled up in a black coat and checkered scarf, holding a venti Starbucks cup. “Traitor,” he adds, grinning. 

“Oh yeah,” Phil says, grinning back, “because you’re here _strictly_ to scope out the competition.”

“I don’t even like Starbucks,” Dan says, nodding seriously. “Want to sit?” 

“Sure!”

Dan gets up to shuffle some textbooks around to make room for Phil to set his drink down, closing the lid of his laptop before Phil can sneak a glance. 

“So what’s your cover for the corporate espionage?” Phil asks, indicating the stack of books. 

Dan grimaces. “I have an essay due tomorrow.”

“Oh! In that case I should probably leave you to it,” Phil says apologetically. 

Dan waves a hand. “Nah, I deserve a break anyway.” He does not, but having someone there reduces the guilt somewhat. It’s an excuse, at least, and it’s not like he was getting much done. 

They sit and chat for an hour, both getting another coffee after finishing the first. When Phil asks Dan about law and his plans for the future, he gives his usual vague cheery response. It barely feels like lying. Dan always gets a giddy rush from bullshitting, because while he’s talking, it almost feels real. Everything seems much easier out loud, his entire future laid out before him in straightforward terms, than it does when he’s in his room at 2am, staring at the ceiling. Talking about studying law suddenly makes it feel _possible_ , and Dan thinks that if only he can hold on to this feeling, the essay might get written after all. 

He finds out Phil is studying Video Postproduction with Specialisation in Visual Effects and he lights up when he talks about it, like it’s genuinely fun, despite the crushing workload he’s currently struggling with. 

“There’s just so much to do, with Christmas and work and my thesis, it feels like my head will _explode_ ,” Phil says, making and explosion noise and gesture. “Right now I should actually be filming, but I had _no_ inspiration, so I went for a walk instead.”

“For your thesis?” Dan asks. 

“Well, no. I have a film project for that too, but right now I should be making a video for Youtube.” He just leaves it hanging, and Dan wonders if he’s allowed to ask. Then again, Phil brought it up, so. 

“You’re a Youtuber? Like, with a proper channel and stuff?”

“That’s generally how that works, yeah,” Phil says, and Dan colours. 

“No, I mean, like. That’s so cool?” he says lamely. He means it too, which is the lamest thing about it.

“Thanks. I think so too,” Phil grins. 

“So, what’s your name on there? I’m gonna look you up,” Dan says with conviction. There go his essay plans. Oh well. 

But Phil pales. “Nooo, don’t,” he says, eyes wide. He looks embarrassed, and that’s weird, because Dan didn’t get the feeling this was something Phil was embarrassed about, from the way he talked about it. 

“Why not?” And, suspiciously, “did you talk about me on there?”

“I. May have. A little,” And now Phil’s blushing, and that’s cute, but fuck, priorities. 

He narrows his eyes. “What.”

“I may have, once or twice, maybe, mentioned a coworker who injures himself a lot?” The expression of exaggerated guilt he makes is adorable, but also probably at least 90% fake. “But not in a mean way!”

Dan puts his head on the table, burying it in his arms. “Oh god. How many subscribers do you have?” he asks, not looking up. 

“Not telling you,” Phil says. 

Dan groans.

“It’s honestly not that bad,” Phil says.

“You refusing to give me your channel name doesn’t inspire confidence,” Dan says, sitting up again. “I’ll find you, you know. If I have to stay up all night to do it, so be it.”

“Please don’t do that.”

Dan glowers, crossing his arms. 

“No, really, don’t, you have to write that essay for tomorrow.” Phil bites his lip on a smile, like he found his trump card. 

Dan scoffs. “As if I care about that now.” It’s a bit too honest, and apparently Phil can tell. 

“Okay, tell you what. I’ll give you the name tomorrow, if you write that essay. Wouldn’t that be easier?” he proposes. 

Dan squints at him. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not! Pinky promise?” Phil asks, holding out a pinky to Dan. 

“Ugh, okay,” he says, disgusted with himself as he extends his own hand. 

They lock pinkies and shake. It’s a weirdly intimate touch, and Dan thinks he must be losing it, because he’s definitely never thought that before. 

“I think I should probably get going,” Phil says, a little regretfully. “Film that video.”

“Yeah,” Dan says. “I’ll go with you, I’m not getting anything done here anyway.” Phil eyes him skeptically at that, but Dan busies himself with packing his things and pretends he doesn’t notice. 

They throw their cups in the bin and leave together. Phil holds the door for him, which Dan feels a little weird about. It’s probably just a nice thing Phil does for everyone, because he’s a (mostly) nice person. It probably isn’t even about Dan’s penchant for running into things, never mind anything else.

When they leave Starbucks, it’s snowing outside, coming down in heavy, wet flakes that cover the ground. 

Phil is delighted. Dan groans. 

“How can you not like snow?” Phil asks. “It’s magical and Christmas-y.”

“It’s cold and wet and leads to horrific accidents,” Dan says. Never mind what it does to his hair. “But trust you to be one of those awful people who _like_ snow.” He zips his coat higher and loops his scarf tighter around his neck.

“Trust you to be one of those grinches who hate it,” Phil returns, doing much the same. He reaches out a hand to fix Dan’s fringe for him, brushing it out of his eyes. “There. Now you can see.”

“Thanks,” Dan says, and it’s only about 2% sarcasm. He hates this crush and what it’s doing to him. 

When they part ways, Phil turns to him. “Finish that essay. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

Dan sticks his tongue out. “Sure, because you’re psychic.”

He doesn’t watch Phil walk away, because he has some dignity left.

-

“Phil, if you play this song one more time, I am going to murder you!” Dan yells, though it’s somewhat muffled by the pillow he’s lying on. 

Dan had, in what can only have been a lapse of sanity, agreed to take the early shift on Mondays. Josh had enticed him by saying (knowing your average uni student no doubt) that if worse came to worst and he didn’t get enough sleep the night before he could always take a nap on one of the couches during the dead period between 10am and noon. 

Worse _has_ come to worst, but Phil is making sleeping impossible. 

“Aw, Dan!” comes his voice from behind the counter. “Don’t tell me you hate that too! You’re gonna turn green and fuzzy!”

At that, Dan actually deigns to lift his head from the pillow, looking over to where Phil is making use of the empty shop by (very badly) dancing to _All I Want For Christmas Is You_. “Green and fuzzy?”

“Yeah, you know,” here he closes a cupboard with a generous hipcheck, “like the Grinch?”

“Maybe I am,” Dan says, flopping back down. “Maybe I’m secretly the Grinch in human disguise. How’re you gonna prove it?” His legs are dangling in the air and it’s really uncomfortable, so with one last _I don’t give a fuck anymore_ sigh he toes off his shoes and pulls his legs up to his chest. He’d care about how he’s literally in foetal position on a way-too-small couch cuddling a pillow if he wasn’t numb with exhaustion.

Phil’s abandoned the counter and is coming towards him now. From Dan’s current vantage point, he can only see his hips and down. _Crotchview_ , great.

“I guess I’d have to skin you,” comes his voice from above. 

“ _Skin me_? Where the fuck did that come from?” Dan asks Phil’s crotch.

Mercifully, Phil has reached the couch and crouches until he’s on eye level with Dan, and his crotch disappears from view.

“Yeah, to find out if you’re really the Grinch wearing some poor boy’s skin as a costume,” he explains, offering Dan a plate. “Cookie?”

“You can’t placate me with baked goods as long as that song is still playing,” Dan says, taking one and shoving it into his mouth whole. “ _Mhhhm_ , still warm.”

“That seemed to placate you just fine.” Phil laughs, sitting down on the floor properly and extending his long legs. 

Dan scowls. “ _Please_ turn it off? I need to get some sleep.”

“Work is not for sleeping, Dan,” Phil says, amusement evident in his voice. 

“Yeah, well, I was working on that essay until five, so I maybe got an hour of sleep earlier, and I need to be at least mostly awake for Criminal Law later.”

“You finished it? Great!” Phil exclaims, with too much enthusiasm. Dan is almost insulted. Phil doesn’t know how hideously awful his track record is, he shouldn’t sound that surprised. 

“Here, have a cookie,” Phil continues, and then presses said cookie against Dan’s lips until he opens his mouth. The feeling of Phil’s fingertips against his lips was not a problem Dan thought he’d be having any time soon, though it could be a _bigger_ problem if he wasn’t as tired as he currently is. Thank fuck for small mercies. 

“Hmpf!”

“What was that?” Phil is having way too much fun with this. 

Dan swallows. “I said don’t hand-feed me. Also don’t think I’ve forgotten about your end of the deal. I get your channel name now.”

“Well, technically,” Phil starts, drawing out the syllables, “you’d have had to do it anyway. It wasn’t really a bargain. Cookie?” This time, Dan intercepts his hand and takes the cookie from him before he reaches Dan’s mouth. Their fingers touch only briefly and Dan is disgusted with himself for still taking note of it. 

“If you try that again I’ll bite you,” Dan promises. 

Phil’s eyes twinkle in a way that let Dan know that the next words out of his mouth will be something he’ll have a hard time not thinking about, so he continues quickly: “And you _pinky promised_. Don’t tell me you’re someone who goes back on a pinky promise?” He makes sure to sound extra outraged, as if it’s a deed punishable by death, or communal shunning.

It works. Phil sighs, defeated. “It’s _AmazingPhil_.”

Dan snorts. “Seriously?”

“I was eighteen!”

As a nineteen year old himself, Dan is not impressed. But he also doesn’t want to get into social media account names, lest he has to divulge his own, so he says nothing.

“Also, I _am_ amazing,” Phil adds. 

Dan just rolls his eyes, grinning. “Sure you are.”

Then, Phil’s expression sobers. “When you watch them, please keep in mind I exaggerate for comedic effect? I do it to everyone, you can check.” He sounds honestly apologetic, which doesn’t bode well for Dan’s dignity. He groans, rolling onto his back and pressing his hands into his eye sockets. 

“Whatever. Right now I’m too tired to feel much of anything, so you might get pardoned by default.” It’s the truth, is the thing. For Dan, sleep deprivation is a lot like being drunk, just without any of the fun parts. 

“I don’t want to get pardoned by default, I want to be pardoned because I’ve earned it,” Phil says. Dan doesn’t know if he’s serious. It’s hard to tell with Phil, sometimes. 

“I should let you take that nap,” Phil goes on. There’s a clink, and then a rustle as Phil presumably gets to his feet. By the time Dan opens his eyes Phil’s back at the counter, but the plate with three cookies still on it is next to Dan on the floor. There’s also a glass of milk that he hadn’t seen before. It’s half empty, so Dan suspects it’s got Phil’s cooties, but decides he doesn’t care. He finishes both before curling up for his well deserved nap. 

_All I want For Christmas Is You_ is still on repeat, but Phil turns it down until Dan can block it out, and he ends up getting a good hour and a half of sleep before being woken up for the midday rush. It goes a long way in making Criminal Law bearable. 

That, and the three quadruple espressos he downs on his way there.

-

When Dan trudges back to his dorm after his last lecture, the sugar-and-caffeine rush is just wearing off, leaving bone-deep exhaustion and the icky feeling that everything is boring and pointless and why is he even alive? in its wake. It’s far from the best mindset to watch potentially humiliating videos about himself and his failure to function in society, but Dan will be damned if he lets that get in the way of finally _knowing_. Plus, when has he ever claimed to be someone who makes reasonable decisions? Exactly. 

It hasn’t really stopped snowing since it had started the day before, and Dan sinks in ankle deep. His new shoes turned out to be distinctly not-waterproof, and his socks squelch with every step. 

It’s already pitch black outside, so when he reaches the sanctity of his dorm room, Dan draws the blinds, strips to a t-shirt and boxers, and gets into bed with his laptop to watch Phil’s videos. Which would implicate much, much worse things under different circumstances. 

Turns out Phil didn’t lie about his channel name, and Dan is relieved to discover that since he started working in the coffee shop, there’s only been one new upload. That’s where the positive surprises end though. Phil’s subscriber count definitely isn’t one.

Before he can psych himself out too much, Dan hits play. 

Phil appears, sitting on the floor in front of an unmade bed with a green-and-blue duvet on it. A bit behind the bed, there’s a dresser on which a tiny stuffed lion is sitting. To the left of the dresser there’s a door.

“Hey guys!” Phil says, with a little wave to the camera. “So the newscasters keep saying there will be INSANE SNOWFALL this year and every day I get up like–” the video cuts to Phil jumping out of his bed fully clothed with a deranged looking smile on his face “SNOW!”, it cuts back to Phil currently, talking to his camera. “Only to find-” cut to the view of the street outside, sad wet pavement and a grey, dreary sky. It’s accompanied by Phil humming a funeral march. The video cuts back to Phil sitting in front of his bed. “No snow,” he pouts exaggeratedly. “So yeah, either the newscasters are lying to us, or the Grinch has preemptively stolen the Christmas spirit.” Here a picture of the Grinch in his Santa disguise pops up at the edge of the screen. 

“Speaking of the Christmas Spirit, I’ve been itching to play my Christmas playlist at the coffee shop I work at since December started. But my boss said–” cut to Phil in a ridiculous getup that looks nothing like Josh, a hat, sunglasses and a wooly scarf that covers half of his face: “NO” – it cuts back to Phil in front of the bed. “He wants me to wait until next week,” in an outraged tone he continues ”that’s the last week before the break! There should be more than one week of Christmas songs before Christmas, right? Tell me what you think.”

“Speaking of the coffee shop though, we finally got another employee! We’ve been hideously understaffed since SUSAN quit.” At “Susan” an annotation that says _name changed to protect the innocent_ pops up. “The new guy is really nice, his hair is kinda like mine, just, like, reversed” here Phil makes a twisty hand motion in front of his face, “but he’s REALLY clumsy, like-” it cuts to Phil with his hair parted on the opposite side, standing up in front of his bed. Then starts a montage of him holding various things and dropping them. First a plastic cup that he just lets slide through his fingers. He then looks down like he doesn’t understand what just happened. It cuts to him holding the stuffed lion, almost dropping it, only to catch it, catapulting it up in the air again and again until it falls. Lastly, he’s holding an entire plastic tray piled with empty tupperware containers and is wearing the wooly scarf again, only now it’s partially unlooped. He gets tangled in the scarf and falls back onto the bed behind him, sending the tupperware containers flying. The whole montage is overlayed with upbeat music.

It cuts back to Phil in front of the bed, fringe back to normal. The lion on the dresser now has a blue annotation speech bubble that just says “fml.”

“So yeah, I’ve mostly been busy trying to keep him alive. But otherwise it’s great to have help and not do everything ALONE and he’s actually good at serving coffee so!” He makes a weighing motion with his hands. 

“Okay I gotta go sacrifice a goat to the snowgods now. Today’s Draw Phil Naked is~"

A cartoon picture of a naked Phil, covering himself with a lion appears on screen, and the video ends. 

Dan isn’t sure how he feels about this. On the one hand it was funny and creative, even though Phil’s Youtube persona is apparently on speed. On the other hand. Well. He doesn’t really like to be the butt of jokes he doesn’t make himself. That’s the entire point of self-deprecating sarcasm: you say the bad thing before someone else can, and turn it to your favour. 

He goes back on Phil’s homepage to check his claim that he does this to everyone (though Dan doesn’t think he’d lie about something so easily disproven, and Phil’s Josh-impersonation speaks to it as well), and discovers that while he was watching, Phil has uploaded the video he said he’d shoot yesterday. Always a glutton for punishment, Dan clicks. 

“Hey guys! So that goat sacrifice, huh?” Cut to Phil in a funny hat, squinting at the camera. “Phil, what _are_ you on about?” he says in a bad American accent and judgmental voice. Cut back to regular Phil, who laughs. “So in my last video, I said I’d sacrifice a goat to the snowgods, so we’d get that snow we’ve been promised, and guess what? It’s snowing!” He looks ridiculously happy at something so horribly cold and wet, and also completely sincere. 

“I have a confession to make though,” here he lowers his voice to a whisper shielding his mouth with his hand like he is confiding in the camera. “It was a stuffed goat. Tell no one!”

“But yeah, snow! It literally just started as I was walking home from Starbucks–” he picks up an empty Starbuck cup that was out of view from the camera and throws it over his shoulder with a shifty-eyed guilty expression then repeats, “Tell no one,” in a whisper. “It’s an addiction!”

“In my defense, I’m not the only one cheating on the coffee shop. Because I ran into my clumsy coworker there. And. Well–”

Cut to Phil in a scarf and glasses, holding the Starbucks cup, saying in an excited voice “Yeah, I make videos on Youtube!”

Cut to what is presumably Dan, clad in a different scarf and with the reversed fringe, speaking in an equally excited but more southern voice: “Oh, cool! What’s your name on there, I wanna see some!”

Cut to scarf-Phil, looking panicked and shifty eyed: “Uhhhhhhhhhhm.”

Cut to southern-fringe-Phil, cocking his head and sounding confused. “Phil?”

Cut to scarf-Phil, looking even more panicked and shifty eyed, lower lip exaggeratedly trembling: “Ehhhhhhh.”

Cut to southern-fringe-Phil, looking slightly panicked now: “Phil, you’re scaring me!”

Cut to scarf-Phil, eyes getting wider and wider: “Ahhhhhhhh.” Scarf-Phil throws his Starbucks cup overhead and runs to the door.

The video cuts back to regular Phil then. “So yeah,” he cringes. “I ended up having to tell him I mentioned him in a video. Dan, if you’re watching this, I’m sorry.” He holds up a hand heart and breaks it apart, a mournful expression on his face. 

“So, today’s lesson is: don’t make fun of your friends! _Withouttheirpermission_.”

“On a slightly happier note, I’m officially allowed to play Christmas songs at work now! Although not everyone appreciates a constant loop of Mariah Carey as much as me. Whatever, they are probably half Grinch. Mariah Carey is the Spirit of Christmas. Tell me what you think? Mariah Carey–” A Mariah Carey cutout pops up at the frame of the video and _All I Want For Christmas Is You”_ starts playing– “or not?” and Mariah Carey ducks back out of view, taking the song with her. "Let me know in the comments!”

“Today’s draw Phil Naked is~" A picture of a naked Phil wearing a Santa hat popping out of a Christmas package appears on screen, and the video ends. 

Dan finds himself smiling despite himself. With a sigh, he scrolls down to the comment box and types _You’re forgiven. *stitches <3 back together*_ and clicks post before he can second-guess himself. 

Maybe he should have though, because now Phil knows his awful screenname for sure.

Damn it.

-

“I have a bone to pick with your snowgods,” is the first thing Dan says to Phil when he walks into the coffee shop the next day. Only under extreme duress would he admit that he thought up that line early this morning (when he fell into a snowbank), and had saved it up all day as the perfect conversation starter.

Phil is, as always, there before him. And it’s not because Dan is perpetually late or anything. He’s a little late, sometimes, mostly, but at one or two occasions he’d made a concerted effort to be at work before Phil, and had failed. If Dan hadn’t seen him outside of the coffee shop before he’d assume he was some kind of coffee shop-dwelling, semi-corporeal ghost. 

Phil looks up a little startled from where he’s unstacking the dishwasher, but rouses himself quickly. “The snowgods are terrifying and powerful, you shouldn’t mess with them,” he says, giving Dan a real smile (as opposed to his customer service smile, which has a distinct dead-eyed quality to it). 

“I think I’ll chance it. My feet are wet and I don’t remember what warmth feels like,” Dan says as he walks past Phil into the back room to hang up his coat and take his apron from the hanger. 

“Seriously, you can’t be happy about this amount of snow. How many goats did you sacrifice?” he says through the open door. He catches sight of a customer, looking at them with a very bewildered expression. 

“Only the appropriate amount,” Phil grins, before turning to her. “Hello, how can I help you?”

Dan is still shivering by the time the woman leaves, which is annoying, if not surprising: he’s been damp ever since his encounter with the snowbank this morning. 

Another annoying, but not surprising thing is Phil setting a hot drink down in front of him, briefly rubbing his shoulders as if to warm him up before heading over to the coffee maker. “To remember what warmth feels like,” he says. 

“Thanks,” Dan says. He knows it’s wrong (and perhaps untrue) to say he’s annoyed by Phil being nice, but it feels weird being babied. It’s not so much that he doesn’t enjoy it, it’s that it sends the wrong message. The “annoying little brother, in need of looking after” category is one he’d rather not be in. 

He takes a sip. “Chamomile tea, Phil? What am I, your grandmother?”

“You’re cold and probably on the verge of getting sick. And don’t think I don’t know how many espressos you consume on a daily basis. I’m not going to contribute to your premature heart failure,” Phil replies without even turning around. 

Dan rolls his eyes, even though Phil can’t see it. “Thanks, Mum.”

Phil laughs. “That’s a very weird family structure. How can I be your mum if you’re my grandmother? Timetravel?”

“ _Obviously_ ,” Dan says, smiling despite himself.

-

Dan ends up having to drink his chamomile tea in sips in between customers, so it’s mostly cold by the time he finishes it just in time for them to close the shop for the night and tidy up. 

Seemingly as soon as he’s turned the shop sign to ‘closed’ Phil turns to Dan with a grin. “Danisnotonfire, huh?” 

Dan groans. He knew it was coming. “Shut up _AmazingPhil_. I literally chose the name at 13.”

“Just giving you a taste of your own medicine. Anyway, sorry again about that video. I was joking in the other one but I meant that.”

Dan waves a hand at him absently as he’s wiping the counter. “It’s fine really, I was being melodramatic. I should be honored to be officially on the list of ‘Weird People Phil meets.’” He’d maybe watched a few more of Phil’s videos the night before. A few dozen. 

“Plus, now I can keep an eye on you,” he adds, making an _I’m watching you_ gesture. 

Phil laughs. “You do that. I’d ask next time, I usually do with friends. But it’s nice to gain a subscriber, even one that’s suspicious of my motives.”

Any kind of comeback Dan might have thought up regarding Phil’s ‘motives’ (which would probably have been more flirty than is advisable, anyway) dies on his tongue when the rest of the sentence registers. Immediately he wants to ask if theirs is the kind of friendship that will continue once they stop being coworkers, but decides that would be to needy and too honest of him to say at this stage.

In the end, he just mimes _I’m watching you_ again, and leaves it at that. 

-

When Dan opens his email inbox that night, he has a Youtube notification for a comment reply. 

_*victory dance* <3_

He stares at it for a couple of seconds, telling himself very firmly that less than threes are essentially meaningless in this day and age, before closing the window.

-

The next day he notices a sign at the door of the coffee shop that says _We will be closed from the start of break until Monday January 3rd_ with a little doodle of a snowman wearing sunglasses next to it that can probably be attributed to Phil. 

The sign is relevant to his life insofar as he’d vaguely assumed that was the case but wasn’t sure, and didn’t know how to ask for a two week vacation on a job he’s just started if it wasn’t. 

Maybe the sign had been there all along though, Dan can admit that he’s pretty fucking unobservant sometimes. 

It still hasn’t stopped snowing, to the point where some of his classes have been cancelled because his professors couldn’t drive to work. Dan is acutely aware of how he drags wet slush all through the shop when he enters, but it barely makes a difference in regard to the state of the floor since the customers are all doing the same. 

The afternoon shift is usually fairly quiet, if not as dead as parts of the morning shift are, but with all the cancelled classes, all bets are off. 

Apparently catching a few extra hours of sleep that morning during what would have been Property Law didn’t improve his coordination any. Or maybe it’s the slippery floor. All Dan knows is he’s careening into a customer while trying to swerve out of the way of another customer’s tiny dog that he almost stepped on. While holding a full tray of dirty dishes he’s just collected from nearby tables. The collision is not pretty, ceramic flying everywhere, and when he lands on his arse on the floor (and not the previously mentioned tiny dog, thank god) all he can think, except for _ouch_ , is how eerily similar what just happened is to Phil’s video. 

Maybe Phil is a witch. Who put a curse on him. 

The shop goes uncannily quiet, all conversation stopping as everyone rotates their head 180 degrees to stare at him. 

“Sorry,” he says, pushing himself to his feet, “wet floor.” He immediately feels a stabbing pain in his left hand. Great. He reached right into a shard. At this point his usual reflex of screeching and cursing has been replaced by silent acceptance and the need to keep his humiliation to a minimum. 

So he gets up, dusts off his now very wet arse as well as he can, and tells people to relocate the queue a meter to the side until he’s sweeped all of it up, then takes his empty tray and goes to find a dustpan. 

Phil is mercifully too busy taking orders to even glance in his direction, so the way Dan winces as he surreptitiously plucks out the shard and dumps it in the bin before grabbing the dustpan and heading back out into the fray goes unnoticed. 

After successfully completing the parkour that is navigating a broom in between people’s legs without sexually assaulting them by accident, Dan returns to the safety of the counter damp from sweat as well as melted snow. 

“That looked like it hurt,” Phil murmurs sympathetically from beside him, all humor absent for once. “Are you okay?”

Dan shrugs. “Bruised ego, wet bum, you know, the usual.”

Phil turns to him fully for a second, scrutinizing him. He reaches out a hand, and Dan is transfixed for a second. Phil fixes his fringe, weirdly gently. “Your hair’s curly,” he says softly, and Dan swallows. 

Every reply that comes to mind is sarcastic and self-depreciating, and that’s not what Phil’s tone calls for at all, so he’s almost glad that Phil has to turn away again quickly to tend to a customer.

It’s not until Ellie and Nadine, another employee Dan knows from shift changes but has never worked with, arrive to take over that Phil notices his hand. 

He’d pulled his sleeve down over it, hoping it’ll at least not bleed straight through, but no such luck. He’s already at the door, raising his hand to wave goodbye, and he sees the exact moment Phil spots it. 

“Dan,” he says, in a sort of exasperated voice a parent might use to ask their child who’s eaten all the cookies, “are you bleeding?”

Dan considers outright denial only for a moment. “Not much!” he says, in a tone very much like that of the aforementioned cookie-stealing child.

Phil, who had been in the process of putting on his coat, takes it off again. “Right,” he sighs, “sit down.”

Dan, already defeated, slumps down on one of the few empty tables. 

“I just need something from the back,” Phil tells the girls. 

“Go right ahead,” Nadine says, waving a hand, looking far too amused.

“Phil, do you seriously keep bandaids in a cupboard somewhere?” Dan shouts after him, incredulous. 

Phil returns a moment later, carrying a small box. “We have a first aid kit, it’s protocol. You’re not the first person to ever cut yourself on broken dishes, you know?” he tells Dan, dragging another chair over to face Dan’s. Dan, for lack of a proper reply, pulls a face. 

“Give me your hand,” Phil says, and Dan, figuring he’s out of options here if he doesn’t want to throw a tantrum about doing it himself in front of two of his coworkers, complies. 

Phil carefully rolls up his sleeve, wincing in sympathy when Dan makes a small sound when the fabric takes some of the fresh crust with it. The cut, though not bleeding anymore, is longer than Dan had thought. 

“I need to clean that, you know,” Phil says by way of explanation as he pulls a bottle of iodine out of the first aid kit. “Our floors aren’t that clean.” He dabs at it with a cotton ball, holding Dan’s hand steady with his left. It stings, but not so badly Dan would pull away if he didn’t, but it’s not like he minds the contact. Actually, as emasculating as any of this is, he doesn’t mind it, not at all. The only problem really is the picture Phil must have of him, injury prone and unable to take care of himself. 

“I could do it,” he offers weakly. He’s looking at Phil, the way his hair falls into his face, tongue caught between his teeth. He can smell Phil’s sweat, product of working in a humid and overheated coffee shop all day, which should be gross, but isn’t. _Dan_ feels gross though, his clothes are sticking to him. 

Phil looks up then. “I want to, you know. I’m aware you’re fully capable,” and that should sound sarcastic, but it’s softer, somehow. 

“There,” he says, “almost done,” putting the cotton ball away and cutting a square off the bandaid strip. He meticulously lines it up with the cut then fastens it, only putting pressure on the outer edges before smoothing it out with gentle pressure.

Dan watches, transfixed. When Phil looks up, one hand still holding Dan’s, the other loosely covering it, for a second Dan expects Phil to lean forward and kiss him. 

He doesn’t, of course. How weird would that be?

Dan swallows against his suddenly dry throat. “Thank you,” he says, perhaps too sincerely. 

Phil smiles, pulling away at last. “You’re welcome.”

-

By the time Double Thursday rolls around, Dan has almost forgotten he’d willingly signed up for that torture. The key word being almost, because Ellie, who’d gotten wind of it only through the grapevine, reminds him every five minutes in a cheery, gleeful tone. 

“Home time for me, half time for you!” she singsongs as she grabs her coat. 

Dan groans, faceplanting on the counter. “Please stop.”

She cackles. “Why did you even ask for that? Money that tight?”

Had that really been the issue, that would have been an incredibly insensitive thing to say. But from one arsehole whose parents pay for most things and who is frequently rude by accident to another, Dan forgives her. 

No, Dan didn’t need the money. He hadn’t needed the money to begin with, had only started working at the coffee shop at all as a result of a 3am resolution that if he’s failing out of Law, he might at least get some work experience to fall back on. The _better_ 3am resolution would have been to study, but when has Dan ever claimed to make sensible decisions?

And Double Thursday, well. That came down to either wanting to help Phil out with his solo shift, or wanting to spend more time with Phil before he stops working at the coffee shop and inevitably forgets about Dan, depending on whether he wants to think of himself as altruistic or or a little creepy. 

Instead of saying any of that though, he just groans again, not lifting his head from the counter. 

That, of course, is when Phil arrives. “You okay Dan?” he asks, definitely more amused than concerned. 

Dan sighs. “Just wondering if I have a death wish,” he says, head still on the counter.

“Hey, I asked you that too, but you were sure!” Phil replies. 

“I’m not backing out, don’t worry.”

“Well, good, because I’m not staying. Bye guys!” Ellie says, tapping Dan’s shoulder once in goodbye before he can hear the jingle of the front door as she leaves. Reluctantly he lifts his head. 

“Hey Phil?” he says, turning towards the back room which is presumably where Phil’s gone. 

“Yeah?” comes his voice, confirming Dan’s suspicion.

“If I die today in a freak accident, will you lie and say I heroically sacrificed myself for an old lady in need?”

Phil reappears, his apron mostly done, fiddling with the ties behind his back. “I’ll bribe and/or intimidate all witnesses,” he nods. The apron doesn’t want to obey, it seems.

“Good, because my coordination isn’t great on a regular day, as you no doubt know, so today all bets are off,” Dan says, watching amusedly as Phil continues to fail in his endeavor.

“I indeed do. Hey, will you tie me up?” Phil asks, turning his back to Dan and gesturing. 

“Gladly,” Dan says, in an over-exaggerated husky voice that does everything a million words couldn’t. He watches the back of Phil’s neck colour when he realises his unfortunate word choice as Dan ties his apron.

“Dan!” he squeaks, and then they’re both laughing.

“When you’re all done groping each other, can I get some service?” An elderly man yells from the counter. 

“Sorry, sorry, coming,” Phil says, smiling his dead-eyed customer service smile. “All done being groped,” he adds under his breath, just for Dan’s benefit, who has to muffle his giggles with his hand. 

“That was the head of the Philosophy department,” Phil explains once the man has gone. “They’re horrifically underfunded apparently. Or that’s what I hear, and it’s the best explanation I got for how grumpy he is, literally every time I see him.”

Dan can’t help himself. “Well, he probably didn’t expect public gay sex at the coffee shop,” he says.

Phil shakes his head sadly. “No taste. We’re hot.”

Dan bites his lip against all the ill-advised (or maybe not so ill-advised?) replies bubbling in his stomach. “We really are,” he says simply, and even that feels like too much, or maybe it’s the breathless way it’d come out.

The mood stays weird and flirty through the entire shift. The public gay sex turns into some kind of running joke, and the most innocent request is made in an innuendo-laden tone or accompanied with eyebrow-waggling.

“Dan, will you wipe down the tables? They need it.” 

“I bet they do.”

“Phil, can you give me a hand?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

The mood isn’t dampened one bit when Dan inevitably spills boiling hot tea over his hand. Phil makes him run it under cold water for no less than ten minutes. And he stays with Dan the entire time, which is absolutely unnecessary and undoubtedly bad for business, one hand holding Dan’s wrists under the water and one touching his back. Dan has goosebumps all over, and it has little to do with the cold water.

The air is heavy after that and Dan thinks they might be on the brink of something. His skin is buzzing by the time they lock up, and his stomach is full of butterflies. Dan hasn’t felt like this in what feels like a long time, like being on the topmost point of a rollercoaster right before it plummets down. 

Outside of the coffee shop, Phil turns to him. Dan thinks _this is it, this is the moment_ but all Phil does is say, “Do you know about the Christmas party the coffee shop is throwing Saturday? It’s just a tiny thing, we’re not that many people, and it’s a little lame, but if you want free booze, we’ve got it.” It’s not what Dan had been expecting, but it makes sense. They’ve only really interacted at work before, not counting their run-in at Starbucks; a party would be the most logical next step.

“Like, for the employees?” he asks. Dan’s never really been invited to a work thing before, hasn’t worked at any place that had work things, or not long enough to find out. 

“Yeah. Josh will be there, but he’s cool as long as you don’t like, puke on the coffee maker. That thing was expensive,” Phil says. 

Dan cringes. He guesses it’s only fair for Phil to warn him, given his track record. “Duly noted,” he says.

“So you’ll come?” Phil asks, a little too eagerly to not be interested. Dan grins. He could feign reluctance, let Phil dangle, but he’s not really interested in playing that game.

“Yes, definitely. Free booze, right?” he says, and he’s sure his face gives him away completely, but he doesn’t care. 

“Great! Here, give me your number so I can text you the details?” Phil asks, and Dan scrambles to retrieve his phone and hand it over. Phil taps away quickly, and Dan can hear Phil’s own phone vibrating when the text he sends himself arrives.

“Awesome! See you there!” Phil hands it back, darts in for a hug, too quick for Dan to really reciprocate, and then he’s walking away. 

Dan’s still standing there, smiling. Technically he’s told his parents he’ll come home Saturday, but he hasn’t bought train tickets yet, and it’s a week til Christmas, so they won’t be too mad if he postpones it for a day.

He doesn’t skip back to his dorm room, but only because snow doesn’t lend itself to skipping. He doesn’t even mind the snow itself that much.

-

The last day of work is madness. There’s no other way to describe it. The last day of classes and a Friday, everyone apparently feels like getting coffee as a reward for a job well done. (Or at least a job _done_ , in Dan’s case.) Never mind that exams are looming after break, never mind that trains all over the country are getting delayed due to snow.

The spirit of optimism doesn’t really carry to the people working at the coffee shop though, there’s too much to do. It’s more like last minute cramming for exams, really, than anything except last minute cramming for exams should have the right to be, in Dan’s opinion. He and Phil say barely two not-work related words to each other all day, and all the levity from yesterday seems to have disappeared. Dan would be panicking about that, if there wasn’t a good reason for it that’s clearly apparent. As it is, he is only panicking _a little_. 

Especially when he goes to get the second blender from the high shelf, misjudges how heavy it is and consequently ends up overbalancing, falling and the blender landing on top of him – and Phil doesn’t immediately rush over to inspect him for bruises. Which is a ridiculous thing to expect, he’s aware. He shouldn’t be disappointed and mildly upset that all Phil does is ask if the blender is okay. (It is. Sturdy, heavy thing from hell.) He just thought he was onto something, and now it’s slipping from his grasp.

Dan had been holding out hope of talking to Phil once their shift ended, though, but that also doesn’t pan out. 

“Sorry, gotta rush, Film project’s on the fritz,” Phil says, by way of explanation as he gathers his coat, not even putting it on properly before rushing out the door. Dan is left blinking after him. 

“Aww, don’t take it so hard,” Nadine says from where she’s putting cookies in the vitrine, flicking her long brown hair over her shoulder. “He always gets like that during finals and things.” She presents him with a cookie: “For the broken heart?”

Dan mumbles something about his heart being fine, but he takes the cookie.

-

Phil does not text him any details (or at all for that matter), but the next day, Dan wakes up at 2pm to an official Facebook invite sent by Josh. It’s titled _**Coffee Shop Christmas Party**_ and simply says _starts @7 if you want coffee bring your own beans_ , which sounds promising enough where alcohol is concerned. 

What concerns Dan though is Phil. If he’s as stressed out about his thesis film project as he was yesterday, the party might well be a disaster. At least for Dan, whose prime objective for tonight is to get Phil to touch him as much as possible. Preferably naked. Work parties do end in drunken hookups 99% of the time, at least if TV is to be believed, and that’s the only source Dan has.

Once he’s rolled out of bed and put his laptop away, Dan makes sure he smells nice and that his hair looks actually decent for once, and spends ages deliberating on an outfit that says “this is a dumb work thing so I didn’t try at all but I still look hot; I would fuck me, would you fuck me? You’d fuck me, right?” but his choices are limited seeing as he hasn’t done laundry in ages. The result does look like something he’d wear to work, so he deems it a tentative success. 

The next step of the process is deciding how late he has to be so he won’t sit in awkward silence with Josh waiting for everyone else to trickle in. He decides that a good half hour should do the trick.

The last and most important step is not falling into another snowbank on the way over. Dan is insanely glad a snowplow or something must just have been through and the pathways are clear, as the snow is now piled shin-high. And coming from someone with legs as long as Dan’s, that’s saying something. 

He can hear music playing in the distance, so there’s probably another party somewhere, but he doesn’t encounter any other people, which makes it feel it much later than it actually is. 

The sign at the door says _Closed Work Function ;)_ and the doodle of a snowman wearing sunglasses now has a skateboard. Dan hadn’t realised how nervous he’d been about Phil not being there at all, until the wave of relief that washes through him at the sight. 

The half hour delay had done the trick, as almost everyone is already assembled by the time Dan walks through the door. 

“Dan, hi!” Nadine greets him. “Here, take a shot!”

Dan takes the proffered glass and downs it. This got off to a promising start, he thinks. 

Minimal effort was made in the way of decoration. All furniture has been pushed to the side to make room for the table in the middle everyone is sitting around, which Dan suspects is actually about six two person tables pushed together and covered in a tablecloth. The ceiling lights are off and the shop is illuminated only by fairy lights in various colours and degrees of tackiness that have been looped around picture frames and, in one case, just been left to lie on the table. Phil’s infamous Christmas playlist is playing (luckily not _All I want for Christmas Is You_ though) and there’s a tiny plastic Christmas tree on the counter, next to a staggering amount of bottles. Dan wonders if he was meant to bring something, but no one says anything and he doesn’t ask. 

He sits down on an empty seat between Nadine and a guy he doesn’t recognise, looking around the room. “Is Phil not here yet?” he blurts. 

She laughs. “He was earlier but had to run out to procure something edible so we don’t all die of alcohol poisoning. In the meantime, have a cookie instead,” she says, reaching into the basket and pulling out a reindeer-shaped cookie, that definitely didn’t originate in the coffee shop. 

Dan doesn’t know whether the cookie is supposed to stand in for food or Phil, and he’s not altogether sure how he feels about Nadine and her propensity to laugh at him and feed him sweets.

Dan gets himself a drink and settles in, trying to make conversation with people who’ve known each other seemingly forever, while he has only been there two weeks. It turns out half of the people present don’t actually work at the coffee shop; Ellie’s much talked about boyfriend came all the way from London to accompany her tonight before they head over to Norfolk together on Monday. Nadine brought a petite blonde girl that is either her girlfriend or her best friend (it’s hard to tell and Dan feels too awkward to ask) and Josh apparently invited their delivery guy. Dan wonders if maybe he’s Phil’s unofficial plus one, but in that weird way where he also works there and they didn’t arrive together. 

Phil returns half an hour later with pizza. Everyone cheers when he walks in, which Dan thinks tipsily is the appropriate response to both pizza and Phil. 

“Dan! You’re here!” He seems both surprised and delighted, and Dan’s insides flutter. He gets up to hug Phil or something, but ends up getting handed the pizza boxes instead. 

“Of course I’m here, where else would I be? There’s pizza,” he says. It’s not his wittiest greeting yet, but whatever. 

In the shuffle that happens as everyone gets up to grab plates, Dan ends up on the opposite side of the table from Phil, which is less than ideal. He reminds himself sternly that Phil is not his safety blanket, and getting all his attention in a group setting was an unrealistic expectation in the first place. 

Dan had wondered what people did at coffee shop staff parties. The answer is sharing funny slash horrible stories about customers: the weird, the crazy, the outrageously demanding. Dan chimes in with a story about a woman who kept bringing her dog into the shop, even though it wasn’t allowed. “Just for a minute, just a minute!” she’d say, “I have nowhere to leave him and I’ll be out in a second!” which neatly segues into the story of him dropping the whole tray of tableware on the floor, the aftermath of which Ellie and Nadine had witnessed.

Dan keeps waiting for Phil to speak up and say that that was far from the first time Dan has managed to get hurt in the line of duty, but he doesn’t, just giggles to himself throughout the entire story. Dan takes it as a compliment on his storytelling skills. He is rather practiced at making fun of himself. 

“Guys, guys!” Jenny, Nadine’s maybe-girlfriend shouts. “I brought mulled wine? In a bottle. You gotta help me drink this we have like three cases at home,” she elbows Nadine in the side.

“Sure, but you’ll have to microwave it,” Josh says gruffly.

“Pshaw, microwave!” Nadine scoffs. “I’ll get a pot.” At Josh’s unforgiving stare, she rolls her eyes, “I promise I’ll clean it!” 

He throws his hands up in defeat. “Fine, whatever.”

Jenny and Nadine get up and go behind the counter to, as Nadine puts it “make the magic happen” aka, heating mulled wine in a pot. Phil gets up too, and for a second Dan wonders bitterly how much supervision mulled wine honestly needs (and should he go check on it too, just to make sure?), but then Phil plops down in the abandoned seat next to him. “Hey.”

“Hey.” And then Dan’s mind goes blank, so he says the first thing that pops into his head, which is: “How’s your film project going?” 

Phil groans, reaching for a bottle on the table and filling up a nearby glass that Dan’s pretty sure wasn’t his. “It’s not a lost cause yet, which is the best thing I can say about it currently. We kinda underestimated how much work it would be, and the deadline’s in like,” he takes a generous drink of the mixture of Malibu plus whatever was in the glass before, maybe to punctuate his sentence properly, “five days. Which means I should be working on it _right now_ technically, but I’ve given myself the evening off.”

“To do some recreational drinking,” Dan completes the sentence for him.

Phil laughs but it sounds a bit pained, presumably because he just snorted Malibu up his nose. “That wasn’t actually the plan.”

“No? Did you mean to go home sober and work at it after this? If that’s the case I’m seriously impressed with your work ethic,” Dan says, grabbing the bottle of Malibu, looking around for his glass for a second on the cluttered table, before deciding _fuck it_ , and drinking straight from the bottle. Might as well get on Phil’s level. 

“God no! You think too highly of me,” Phil says. 

“Far be it from me to criticise anyone’s work ethic, honestly I write all my papers in all nighters right before the deadline,” Dan says, then immediately regrets it. He doesn’t mean to open that can of worms on what is maybe kind of a date. Ish. 

Phil doesn’t follow up on it though, just laughs again. “Sadly that’s not how film stuff works. At least if you film in multiple locations.”

Dan is honestly curious now. “What is your project about?”

“That’s strictly confidential, but I can tell you that it’s a horror movie,” Phil lowers his voice and leans forward confidentially, and Dan can feel his breath on his skin when he says, “there was grave-digging at some point.” He lowers his voice even more, “In an off-limits area.”

Dan oohs sarcastically. “You rebel.”

Phil nods. “Real street cred,” he says seriously.

“I demand a round of applause!” Jenny shouts. Dan startles, only now realising how incredibly close they moved to each other. He looks up to see Nadine walking in with a tray of steaming mugs on it. Jenny is right behind her, clapping sarcastically. 

Nadine goes around the table setting a cup down in front of everyone. 

“Careful, it’s hot.”

“No, seriously?” Jenny fake gasps. Dan is still on the fence about Nadine, but he’s decided he likes Jenny, if only for constantly giving her shit. 

“Now it’s finally Christmas,” Nadine tells everyone as she sets two cups down in front of Dan and Phil. 

“Go home Nadine, you’re drunk,” Phil says. 

“ _You’re_ drunk,” Nadine retorts intelligently, but it’s probably true, so. She’s also swaying just slightly. Dan tries to cover his laughter by taking a sip of his mug, which is a bad idea for more than one reason, and ends up spluttering. From the corner of his eye he sees Jenny gently taking Nadine’s arm and leading her back to her seat.

“You okay Dan?” Phil asks amusedly, but with that same soft tone to it with which he always asks it. 

“Mhhhmn,” Dan says, waving a hand in front of his face uselessly, “burned my tongue.”

Phil’s eyes meet his, and immediately Dan knows he couldn’t have engineered this better if he _tried_. 

“Want me to kiss it better?” Phil asks in a mischievous tone that he could later _pretend_ was joking. Dan wants to tell him it’s not necessary.

“Please do,” he says, leaning forward only the tiniest bit. Only the tiniest bit is necessary, really, Phil is already so close. He cups Dan’s face with both hands, probably to improve aim. It’s very soft, and then there’s a swipe of tongue, and Dan opens his mouth obligingly. After all, it’s the inside of his mouth he’s burned, so for Phil to kiss it better, he needs to be able to get at it. 

Phil pulls back after another moment, his hands sliding down Dan’s cheeks and brushing his pulsepoint briefly before falling away. Dan opens his eyes and blinks at Phil. Phil blinks back. Then, they turn their heads to the table.

“Don’t stop on our behalf,” Josh says, and Dan is immediately mortified. 

“I was enjoying the show,” Ellie’s boyfriend, who is either called Finn or Felix, adds.

Nadine seems to have mercifully passed out on Jenny’s shoulder within the last two minutes. Jenny is stroking her hair absently.

“I knew we’d be a great show,” Dan says, half to the table half to Phil. “Coffee shop porn, coming to a table near you this winter.” He turns back to Phil, who is gnawing on his lip.

“Phil? You okay?” Dan asks. It can’t be his kissing skills, he’s a pretty good kisser if he dare say so himself. 

“Yeah I, uh. Need the loo. Be right back,” he says, and practically high-tails it out of the room towards the staff toilet.

“Oh, dammit, _Phil_!” Josh shouts after him. Dan looks at him in confusion, but no explanation is forthcoming. His voice rouses Nadine though, who blinks back into wakefulness. “Whathappen,” she mumbles. 

“You missed the show,” Jenny tells her, tilting her head in Dan’s direction. 

Nadine groans. “No, seriously? Dammit.” She turns her head to look at Dan, still half-lying on Jenny.

“Don’t,” Dan says, throwing a half-eaten cookie at her before she can say anything. “Have a cookie.” It lands in her mug.

She grins at him, all teeth on display. “Fair enough.”

Phil returns a little while later, very pale. 

“And that is what happens when you start drinking at 6pm,” Josh tells him in an exasperated voice, like he’s a world-weary father who’s dealt with this shit all his life. “Did you at least clean up after yourself?”

Phil nods mutely.

Dan should have seen this development coming by at least a mile, but honestly Phil hadn’t _seemed_ that drunk. He guesses that’s what five years of university can do for you. 

“I’m heading home,” Phil says, not looking at Dan at all. He grabs his coat, waves once to the table mumbling something about merry christmas and a happy new year, and then he’s out the door. 

Dan sighs and grabs his bottle of Malibu.

-

If Dan said he’s having a miserable Christmas, he’d be lying. If Dan said he was having a good Christmas, he’d also be lying. All Dan can honestly say is that that he is having a weird Christmas. 

Christmas brings too many well-meaning relatives asking him if he’s enjoying university, and there is no good way of answering that. His law course is godawful and draining the life out of him, even while he’s doing the minimum amount of work possible. And while he doesn’t completely hate uni, most of what he likes about it has to do with the coffee shop, and Phil, and that’s a tricky subject right now. 

Plus, Dan’s grandmother is hardly his go-to person for boy troubles. None of his family are his go-to person for boy troubles. Dan doesn’t think he _has_ a go-to person for boy troubles.

Dan hasn’t heard from Phil since the Christmas party, and he’ll be damned if he’s the first to break the silence. If Phil considers it worth breaking at all, that is. Dan can’t help but think about what this situation must be like from Phil’s end: randomly kissing that coworker with the embarrassing crush on you at a work thing while completely hammered, then promptly throwing up. It sounds like the kind of drunken mistake Dan would go out of his way to avoid dealing with, honestly. And Phil won’t even have to go out of his way to avoid it at all, he’s done working in the coffee shop after the break, so really, it doesn’t even matter. Maybe that’s why he did it, because why the hell not? That _also_ sounds like something Dan would think was a great idea at the time, then promptly regret after chucking his guts up.

Dan is trying to put it out of his mind. It was stupid and dumb and now it’s in the past. 

That resolution lasts until he’s drunk and miserable in his bedroom at home New Year’s Day at 4am. He’d walked five blocks from his friend’s house because he suddenly realised that there’s nothing stopping him, and he’d rather be alone and sleep in his own bed anyway than on a mattress on the floor with two other people who keep pushing him off the side.

It had been a get-together with lots of alcohol more than a party, all his old friends assembling as part of their yearly ritual. The group is already smaller than last year, and Dan gives it one more year until no one will show up at all. He’s not sure if he will. 

It’s nothing dramatic, really, just people drifting apart after going off to different unis all over the country, making new friends and meeting new people and maturing in ways the others can’t relate to. And Dan is feeling it most acutely; since he took a gap year most of his friends are a year ahead of him in university. Even those that also go to Manchester, he never sees. 

So after already having been in a maudlin mood all break, and then contemplating the inevitability of people drifting apart, and what even is the point?, while being in a maudlin mood drunk, he just gathered his things when everyone was headed to bed, told them he was feeling nauseous and didn’t want to throw up on them, and walked home.

And now he’s in a maudlin mood, drunk, and too keyed up to sleep, awake alone in this house. Really, it’s ideal breeding ground for bad decisions. 

And it is a decision. Dan is the kind of person who sits down, decides to do a thing he _knows_ is a bad idea, full offense intended, then bemoan it for the rest of his life. 

He gets his phone and his keys, tiptoes out to his porch, and sits down. The air smells like smoke. There are still fireworks going off in the distance, but all around him it’s the dead of the suburban night. The corpses of burnt out fireworks are lining the pavement and Dan stretches his legs out, shivers, and dials. 

He gets Phil’s mailbox, of course. Phil is either asleep or out with friends, and the airwaves are probably still overloaded from New Year’s messages. 

He’d had only the vaguest idea of what he’d say if Phil answered, knowing he could blame it on New Years and being drunk.

When he hears Phil’s mailbox message ( _Sorry, bears have stolen my phone. Leave a message and I call back once they return it_ , which makes him smile despite himself) he briefly considers hanging up. But the idea of Phil waking up to a missed call notification from Dan seems somehow more sad and pathetic than leaving a message. 

“Hey. Um. You’re a twat. This is dumb but like. Earlier I burned myself on a firecracker. Not like, badly burned or anything, just like, it brushed against me before I could throw it away. But I did, and then I thought of you. Like it’s some kind of weird conditioned response. And I was outside with my mates, so I couldn’t like,” he puts on an exaggerated incredulous voice for the next part, “hold it under cold water for _ten minutes_ , so I just kinda licked it and kept my hand out of my pocket. And it kept hurting, of course. I think I’m getting a blister actually,” he says, examining his hand and pressing on the tender skin. “So yeah, it kept hurting, and I kept thinking of you, and yeah. That’s stupid. You’re a twat. Bye.”

He hangs up, feeling like he didn’t say at all what he meant to, or anything at all really, and at the same time, way too much. The regret is already starting to seep into his drunken mind, so he stands up, deciding he’s going to force himself to sleep before the idiocy of what he’s done fully sinks in. 

He can deal with it tomorrow. Or preferably never. It’s not like he’ll have to see Phil again. 

-

Dan returns to his prison cell dorm room and empty fridge Sunday evening. Everyone seems to mostly still be at home, and the quiet is eerie. 

It had been weird going back home for the holidays, but even though all the lying he’s done about how _great_ everything’s going was exhausting and he’s glad it’s over for now, the change is depressing. He turns the heat all the way up, orders pizza, and watches anime until he passes out around 2am. 

Trudging through the snow to the coffee shop the next morning feels distinctly like going back to school the first day of tenth grade after the guy who was the closest thing to a best friend Dan had at the time had moved away: weirdly off-center and like he has to navigate an entirely new social climate. 

He hadn’t known who’d work next to him instead of Phil, didn’t know if maybe he’d had to do it alone or if they’d managed to find a short time replacement over the break. He’s still out of the loop regarding the behind-the-scenes workings of the coffee shop crew for the most part. 

The coffee shop is still closed when he arrives, which had never happened when Phil was working there, but inside, he finds a very hungover looking Nadine lying on her back on the counter.

“Hey,” she croaks, lifting her head the barest amount before slumping back down. She’s almost as tall as Dan is, so her feet are hanging off the side.

The setup of the room is back to normal, but the couches have changed position, and it only adds to the feeling of displacement. 

“That’s not hygienic,” he says, in lieu of a greeting. She groans. 

“Too much partying?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” she says, then adds, “I haven’t slept yet. Whatever, today is pointless anyway, no one’s back yet.”

Dan has gotten only about five hours of sleep, which after the last two weeks, feels like way too little. He walks behind the counter and turns on the coffee maker. No use working in a coffee shop if you don’t take advantage. “D’you want coffee?” he asks. She only groans again. 

Dan takes pity. “Go lie on a couch, that can’t be comfortable. I’ll wake you up if I really need you.”

With what seems like much difficulty, Nadine heaves herself off the counter. “Thanks. You’re a good egg, Dan.”

Dan makes himself his trusted quadruple espresso that got him through his hellish internship last year, turns the door sign to _open_ and defrosts some muffins. And then sits there fucking around on his phone.

Nadine stays asleep until eleven. In that entire time, only two people come in, both girls in heavy coats and bags full of books whose commitment to coursework Dan would admire if it didn’t make him feel so bad about himself. 

They sit silently on their respective tables and laptops, typing and sipping their coffees. The menu still lists the seasonal drinks and they have syrup left, so when one of them asks for a gingerbread latte, Dan makes it for her even though he’s not sure if he’s technically meant to. There’s a whole kind of ethos surrounding seasonal drinks in the coffee shop hivemind, or so he’s learned. 

Phil’s Christmas playlist is still in the stereo, too, and he lets it play. All in all, it’s a weird day. 

When Nadine gets up from the couch, her hair is tangled and her makeup is smudged and she truly looks like someone who passed out after a night of drinking. 

“Can I have that coffee now?” she asks Dan in a croaky voice. “Ugh, my mouth tastes like death.”

She disappears into the employee bathroom to freshen up, and chugs her coffee in one go upon her return. “I’m doing the afternoon shift too,” she explains. Dan pulls a sympathetic face. 

She eyes him speculatively. “Hey Dan, you’re cute,” she says.

“Um. Thanks?”

Nadine rolls her eyes. “No, I was just thinking. Girls probably like you. We need to find someone to replace Phil, and that will help with hiring, I think.”

“I’m glad to be a convenient prop for the corporate machine,” he tells her.

She laughs. “Just remember to smile a lot. Ask if they want to come in for a probationary shift sometime. And don’t make any definitive promises.”

Dan feels suddenly a lot like he’s been conned. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says. 

She beams at him. “Great! You’re one of us now,” she says, patting his shoulder. 

Phil or no Phil, he seems to have found his niche at uni. It’s probably sad that it’s _this_ , and how happy it makes him, but whatever. He’ll make the best of it. 

-

The week passes in much the same vein. Dan works next to Nadine, and Ellie, and two times he works alone. There’s not much to do and he spends more time on his phone than not. 

The next Monday, the day class is starting again, he arrives at the coffee shop to find an unfamiliar guy waiting grumpily outside the front door. 

He succinctly introduces himself as: “Matt. I don’t have a key.” 

Matt, it turns out, is here because Josh called in a favour, and he’s not happy about it. Dan isn’t happy either. They still haven’t found anyone permanent, and he is dreading the week to come. He smiles extra hard at everyone that day, and draws a penguin with a dollar sign on its belly on the front door sign, which now says _We’re hiring!_. It seems like the thing to do. 

When Dan comes into work Tuesday, he immediately feels like he stepped through a time portal. Someone’s put all the tables and couches back the way they were before the break. It’d figure Josh would have some kind of _vision_ for how the coffee shop should look, but Dan wasn’t expecting it. 

He also wasn’t expecting Phil behind the counter.

“You don’t work here anymore,” Dan says, from where he’s frozen in the doorway.

Phil looks up, flicking his fringe out of his eyes. “No, I don’t,” he says. “There was no one else to call though.”

Dan is torn between feeling insulted Josh didn’t trust him to do it alone and relief that he doesn’t have to weather the evening shift by himself yet. 

“That sucks,” he offers vaguely. Phil nods a little, maybe just to himself. 

It’s busy enough that they don’t have to talk to each other much, except for work-related things, and it’s easier than Dan expected. He hadn’t realised how in-sync he and Phil had become where the coffee shop is concerned.

The silence is weird though, so when there’s a brief lull in customers and Dan just finds himself kind of hovering after restocking the muffins, he asks: “So did you have a nice Christmas?”

“Hmmn. Did you?”

“Uh-huh.” 

It’s incredibly awkward. Dan catches Phil looking at him sometimes from the corner of his eye. Dan kind of wants to ask him to spit it out, but he’s never been the most confrontational person. 

It’s not until closing time that Dan realises that he hasn’t hurt himself once that entire shift. It shouldn’t be noteworthy, he certainly can’t remember what his track record for the past week has been. Tiny mishaps just happen to him usually and he moves on and forgets about them quickly. It’s always been Phil who made a big deal out of it. So it shouldn’t be noteworthy, except now Dan is wondering whether that’s what Phil’s been waiting for all evening. 

Dan wonders what he’d do, if he’d make a fuss or just let Dan deal with it himself. And now that he’s thought of it, he really wants to know the answer. So.

He reaches for the steamer wand, making sure to grab a bit of the hot part. “Holy _fucking_ shit!” he screeches, dropping it, just to make sure Phil can’t miss it. And he doesn’t.

“Dan? Oh god are you okay?” he asks, alarmed. 

“Yeah, just burned myself,” Dan pulls a face. “No big deal.”

Phil scrutinizes him for a second, then walks over. “Come on, let me see that,” he says. Dan gives him his hand and Phil cradles it, examining where his skin is just a touch pinker than usual.

“Let’s hold it under cold water,” Phil says, pulling Dan over to the sink. He runs the tap, removing one hand from Dan’s, testing the water temperature, and guides Dan's hand under the stream when he deems it cold enough. 

Dan turns his head, looking at Phil from under his lashes. Or he hopes that’s what it looks like and that he’s not indeed going cross eyed. They’re very close. For good measure, he smiles his sweetest smile. 

“Thank you,” he says, and, just a tiny bit sarcastically, “what would I do without you?” There’s something happening here, and two can play that game.

“Die, probably,” Phil says, smiling back. Dan’s own smile turns a little stupid.

“Better?” Phil asks after a minute. Dan nods. 

Phil turns off the tap and lets go of Dan, his fingers skimming over the back of Dan’s hand before he pulls away to finish up with the shop. 

The silence returns as they’re stacking chairs on tables and wipe down the counter, and it’s tense, but it’s a different sort of tension now. Dan’s not sure how to break it, figures he’d done his part and it’s Phil’s turn now. 

And Phil delivers. 

They’ve gathered their coats and Phil is locking up the back room when he says, “I know you did that on purpose you know,” before looking up, and yup, that’s definitely “from under his lashes”, like, the definition of the thing; the dictionary would have a picture of Phil in this exact moment. 

Dan, for lack of a better reply (or self-control, for that matter), darts forward and kisses him. 

Phil kisses back hungrily, his hands coming up to cup Dan’s cheeks again, and Dan puts both hands in his hair and pulls him as close as can go. When Phil bites the corner of his lip questioningly, Dan only sighs and tightens his grip, and next thing he knows he’s up against the wall, losing his breath. _Holy shit_.

When Phil pulls back, his hair is all over the place. Dan should probably not be proud of his ability to give people sex hair within two minutes of making out, but he kind of is. 

“Woah,” he says. Then: “Okay, I have a question.”

“Ask away,” Phil says, fixing his fringe. His voice sounds hoarse. 

“Why the fuck did you never call me back?” Dan asks. “Or call me at all, for that matter.”

“You called me a twat twice, I didn’t think you wanted me to,” Phil shrugs, looking vaguely apologetic. “I all but threw up on you, I didn’t think you’d still be interested.” That does make sense. Still. 

“Pshaw, that’s a term of endearment,” Dan jokes, grinning. 

Phil grins back, then darts forward, pressing a quick kiss to Dan’s mouth.

“Okay, now _I_ have a question,” he says, eyes twinkling. 

“Yeah?” This better be good.

Phil doesn’t disappoint. “Yeah. Do you wanna come back to my place?”

“Mhhhm, let me think,” Dan says, tapping a finger against his lips. “Hmmm. _Yes_.”

Dan hopes the walk to Phil’s place won’t be too long, not so much because he’s that impatient (though there’s also that), but because he dreads awkward silence setting in. He needn’t have worried though, for the walk turns out incredibly short. They walk around the corner of the building and then Phil is unlocking a door. Of the same building. 

Inside, there’s a narrow, dim staircase, only illuminated by one very sad-looking lightbulb.

“Wait, you live _over the coffee shop_?” Dan asks, incredulous. “How have you never mentioned that?”

“It didn’t come up?” Phil says. “I rent from Josh, it was cheap and convenient.”

“I bet. No wonder you’re always there before me, bloody hell,” Dan grouses, as he follows Phil up two flights of stairs. 

“Sorry you are perpetually late I guess?” Phil says as he’s unlocking his door. It seems to be a bit temperamental, from the effort he has to put in. Dan elbowing him in the back at that comment probably didn’t help either. Oh well. 

It opens into a tiny corridor that’s almost as depressing as the stairway was, with three doors leading off it. There’s nothing in there except a clothes rack on the otherwise bare wall, and Dan is giving Phil the benefit of the doubt, thinking that the floor is supposed to be dark grey and it isn’t lack of cleaning. 

They hang up their coats and take off their shoes, promptly getting their socks wet because snow mush is melting everywhere. 

“Uahhagh,” Phil says as his socked feet step right into a puddle. 

“Regretting your decision to summon Satan and ask for snow now?” Dan asks. 

Phil sticks his tongue out at him. “Neverrr,” he says, skipping over a puddle and opening the door to their left. “After you.”

Dan’s already seen Phil’s bedroom before in a way, but now he’s getting a different perspective of it. 

“Wow, I thought you were tidier than this from your videos,” he says.

There is a dresser and a wardrobe to his left, and the bed with the familiar green and blue sheets on the next wall over, facing a large desk that also serves as a TV stand. The carpet seems to be some shade of blue, from what is actually visible from it. Because there is clutter _everywhere_ , papers spilling from the desk onto the chair and floor, a vast array of multicoloured clothespegs seem to be scattered everywhere, and there’s a drying rack pushed up against the drawer, so it’d be impossible to get at, on whose edge Lion is precariously balanced. 

“That’s my secret: I lie to the internet,” Phil says confessionally, pulling his wet socks off and letting them fall to the floor, adding to the pile. Dan takes that as permission to do the same. “Before I film I just shove it all under the bed or in the closet,” Phil continues.

Dan fake gasps. “Wow. Just. Wow.”

“It’s a little tidier than this, usually,” Phil says, putting his hands on Dan’s waist to gently navigate him through the mess towards the bed. “This is the thesis fallout.”

For as much as Dan’s been raised to be nice and polite, he doesn’t want to start talking about uni work _now_ , so all he does is hum a little disbelievingly (can’t let Phil think he’s getting away with anything), and turn to kiss him again. 

“Are you trying to shut me up, Howell?” Phil mutters between kisses. 

“Mhhhm,” Dan mumbles, not stopping the kiss to answer. 

“Cheeky,” Phil says, pulling away. Dan only has a split-second to register the expression on his face before Phil unceremoniously shoves him onto the bed. 

“Oh my god you—” Dan half-gigges, half-shouts, breaking off when Phil crawls on top of him, covering Dan’s mouth with his again. 

Phil’s bed isn’t any tidier than his floor by any means, so Dan is collapsed on a pile of clothes, but he decides he’s fine with that if Phil is. 

They make out for a few minutes until Dan’s trousers are straining and Phil has started grinding down on him. 

“Clothes off maybe?” Dan mumbles as Phil moves his mouth down his jaw and to his throat. 

“Shit!” Dan hisses, his foot twitching in an effort not to move away, because it feels good but his neck is a sensitive spot and his reflex to kick whoever touches it is still very much present. 

Phil bites down gently before pulling back, looking very gratified at Dan’s gasp. 

“Clothes off,” he agrees, finding the hem of Dan’s shirt, digging his fingers into Dan’s sides just to be a little shit, laughing when Dan squeals. 

“I hate you,” Dan says, scrambling to help Phil get it over his head and off, only managing to get hopelessly tangled, of course. 

Phil sits up to give him more leverage. “Not my fault you are ridiculously sensitive,” he says, poking Dan’s stomach.

Dan just grunts in displeasure, finally managing to get the shirt off, flinging it to the right where it catches on the drying rack, knocking Lion to the floor. Dan slumps back down, but thanks to a mild shift in position there is now something hard digging into his side. He blindly reaches for it, pulling it out from under him. 

“Phil,” he says throwing the yellow peg at him, “why is this in your bed? Do you have a fetish or something?”

Phil laughs, picking it up and holding it out to Dan to see. “It’s a Pikachu peg! My mother gave me a Pokémon peg set for Christmas, but I’d already got it for myself, now I have twice as many. She knows me too well.” The peg indeed has Pikachu’s face on one side. 

“Stop talking about your mum, it’s not helping,” Dan says. Phil only sticks his tongue out and clips the peg to Dan’s now bare stomach, moving his knee forward to press against Dan’s dick, as if to prove a point.

The peg doesn’t really hurt to begin with, it’s more of a dull pressure, but it builds quickly. Dan makes an undignified noise and bucks up into Phil’s knee. 

“Now who has a peg fetish?” Phil asks, and it’s a joke, but when Dan doesn’t answer, his eyes widen. Very slowly he reaches out to remove the peg, not taking his eyes off Dan’s face. 

Dan waits for his next move, frozen in place. Phil traces a finger over Dan’s left nipple, watching it harden, then looks up again at Dan to check his reaction. Dan only swallows dryly, but whatever Phil sees on his face must be enough, because he picks up the peg again and fixes it on Dan’s nipple, not taking his eyes off Dan’s face the entire time.

Dan draws in air sharply. It hurts much more than his stomach did, and he could swear he feels his dick twitch. Phil is still looking at him unblinkingly. “Good?” he asks, and Dan only nods enthusiastically, making grabby hands and straining upwards. Phil meets him halfway, his mouth hungry. Dan wraps his arms around him, clawing at his back, blunt fingernails over fabric. He falls back on the bed with Phil covering his body entirely, putting additional pressure on the peg. 

It hurts a lot, and Dan is so hard he’s leaking. It doesn’t take long before he’s whimpering, unsure whether he wants it to stop now or keep going. Phil draws back just enough to reach his hand between them and flick the peg once, and at the sound Dan makes he removes it, finally. 

“Oh god,” Dan says, the first words he’s said in a while, and he’s surprised by how rough his voice sounds. “Oh fuck.” It hurts almost more now than it did before, blood flow returning where it’s been cut off before.

Phil looks like he wants to apologise, and Dan can’t have that. “Kiss it better?” he asks, doing his best to smirk. 

Phil looks extremely pleased as he ducks down to do so. It’s less kissing and more sucking, but Dan is not complaining, Phil’s mouth is wet and hot and when he pulls back the saliva coated skin cools quickly, making Dan hiss.

“I have more pegs,” Phil says almost hesitantly motioning, vaguely in the direction of the drying rack. 

“Well, what are you waiting for? Go get them,” Dan says. Phil darts forward, his hands cupping Dan’s cheeks as he kisses him, quickly but passionately, before getting off the bed to gather a multicoloured plethora of pegs. He finally removes the pile of clothes next to Dan’s head to lay the pegs out on the bed, and Dan sits up properly to inspect them. 

“Are these like, the original 150 Pokémon?” he asks Phil, who is climbing back on the bed. 

“Uh-huh. There’s different packs of about 20 each, and I think you can collect them, but I got the same one twice,” he says. 

“That’s the nerdiest thing I’ve ever heard,” Dan informs him, smiling. “You are a giant nerd.”

“Well, so are you if you recognised that,” Phil says, leaning in to kiss Dan again, punctuating it with a quick bite. 

“I didn’t say I was complaining,” Dan says, pulling Phil closer, pushing his hips up against him. 

“This is really working for you, huh?” Phil asks. Dan suddenly realises that this has been all about him so far. 

“Is it working for you though?” he asks, drawing back a little to watch Phil’s face for any signs of a lie. Instead of saying anything though, Phil just smirks and bears down on Dan, and yeah. Yeah, Dan guesses this is working for him. 

“Well, good,” he tells Phil. 

“Okay, lie down,” Phil says, “I need to cover you in Pokémon, but in a kinky way.”

Dan complies, laughing, covering his face with both his hands. “Oh god, you’re ridiculous.”

“You love it,” Phil says, and Dan’s denial gets stuck in his throat when Phil puts Bulbasaur to work right above his right hip bone, where the skin is thin. 

Dan sighs a little, biting his lip so he doesn’t make any ridiculous noises as Phil distributes eight pegs evenly across his torso. 

Charmander goes to the spot above his other hipbone, mirroring Bulbasaur. Ekans gets clipped into his bellybutton. 

When Phil picks up a green peg with Metapod’s face, he opens and closes it a few times absently. He _hmms_ as he pretends to scan Dan’s body for a good place. 

Dan releases his bottom lip from his teeth in favour of calling him out. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know where to put that,” he says, trying to make his voice as even as he can. 

Phil’s eyes flick up to his eyes and he grins. “You’re right, I’m stalling,” he says, leaning forward. He skips Dan’s nipples entirely to clip it right over his right clavicle. The skin is even thinner there, and Phil just got a tiny bit of it between the clamps. It hurts more than Dan was expecting, and he squirms.

“Asshole,” he says.

Phil laughs as he picks up Oddish, putting it over Dan’s left clavicle. 

“It’s symmetrical! Okay, now, where should I put Jigglypuff, what do you think?” he asks, holding the peg in question up for Dan to see. 

“You think you’re funny, don’t you,” Dan says. He’s aiming for sarcasm, but his voice is a little too hoarse for him to pull that off entirely. 

“I have my moments,” Phil says. Dan tenses as he pinches it open, finally taking pity and clamping it over Dan’s right nipple. It’s not the one that had a peg on before, which is still tender, and Dan doesn’t know if he’s dreading Pikachu’s return, or is excited for it.

“Ready?” Phil asks, apparently feeling similarly. Dan is maybe ridiculously in love.

“If you don’t quit stalling, I’m gonna go home,” he tells Phil.

Phil leans over for another quick kiss, and while Dan is distracted, puts the pin on. Dan gasps into the kiss, grabbing Phil and digging his nails in his shoulders. 

“You need to tell me when it gets to be too much,” Phil mumbles between kisses, and Dan nods, not wanting to pull away for a second. It’s the most intense thing he’s felt in his life, points of pain of varying intensity scattered all over his torso, pain building quickly. He briefly thinks about the possibility of pegs down lower, doesn’t know if that would be pleasant but thinks he wants to find out. He arches into Phil at the thought.

“Okay, okay, I think now,” he says after a moment, pulling away regretfully.

Phil backs away, sitting down on his haunches. “Start from the top or start from below?” he asks. Dan takes a moment to think, trying to assess how much longer it will be bearable. It depends on what Phil has planned, but Dan thinks he has some idea. “The top,” he answers.

Phil closes his hand over the pin on Dan’s left clavicle, not pressing on it yet, studying Dan’s face intently for a second, but whatever he sees must reassure him. He pinches it open, pulling it away and laying it down on the bed to his right. “Kiss it better?” he asks. 

“Yes please,” Dan says faintly as blood flow returns, briefly increasing the pain. He leans in towards Phil, who presses a soft kiss over the hurt area. Dan shivers, goosebumps appearing on his arms and legs. He’s not cold at all, but the stinging pain combined with how hard it’s making him makes everything feel like too much, whole body sensitive and alert. 

Phil moves over to the other peg, kissing his way over, not taking his mouth off Dan’s skin. His hair brushes Dan’s neck and he has to try very hard not to flinch, sure Phil would take it the wrong way.

Phil tries to unclasp the next peg with his teeth, which turns out to be a bad move. The pressure makes it fly right out of Phil’s mouth and propels it off the bed, hitting something on his nightstand. 

“Ow my teeth,” Phil mutters. Dan laughs a little breathlessly, but it turns into a moan quickly as Phil kisses the hurt spot, then moves down towards Dan’s nipples. He’s wised up now, using his hand to remove the peg before his mouth closes over the nipple. Dan can feel his teeth, but he’s not biting down, just dragging them over the areola gently. Dan’s hips strain up, seeking friction, but Phil purposefully moves out of the way. Dan whines in displeasure. 

Next one up is the one that got double treatment, and Phil takes extra care with it, it seems, tracing a finger over it before sucking it into his mouth. Dan bucks up into thin air.

“Phiiiil,” he groans. Phil ignores him, making his way down towards his belly.

Dan presses a hand against his mouth because it tickles, trying to muffle his laughter. It’s the weirdest mix of sensations he’s ever experienced, though far from unpleasant.

Overall, the peg on his navel is the one that hurts the least, less biting, more dull pressure. Phil licks the inside of his bellybutton as he kisses the spot after removing it, and Dan is surprised at the moan that forces its way out of his throat. “Shit!” 

Phil laughs against his skin, that little shit.

“That was gross,” Dan tells him. 

“Liar,” Phil mumbles, spider-walking his hand over to the peg over Dan’s right hipbone.

“Stop tickling me!” Dan demands, kicking a leg out on purpose, but missing completely. Phil retaliates by blowing a raspberry, which is much more effective and makes Dan emit a high-pitched squeal. “I hate you. _Haaaate_ ,” he says, when he gets his breath back. 

Phil has to do a downward shuffle to get at the next one, still firmly staying out of rubbing-off distance for Dan’s crotch. His legs are half off the bed by this point to accomplish that. 

The pegs there have been on the longest, and are hurting almost as much as the ones on his nipples did by now, and that means all of Dan’s attention is focused on his lower half by default. When Phil removes the right peg, the one that’s Bulbasaur-shaped, the kiss that follows is the wettest yet. Afterwards he licks his way over to the other side, finally moving his body so he’s sitting in between Dan’s legs. It doesn’t really help though, as he makes sure to pin Dan’s left leg down with his, depriving him of all leverage he’d had. Dan, who has a pretty good idea where this is going by now, is fine with that, or as fine as is physically possible, at least. 

By the time Phil removes the last pin, Dan is practically vibrating. Phil kisses the uncovered skin very softly, no tongue at all, then looks up at Dan. 

“All good?” he asks with a cheeky grin. 

“ _No_ ," Dan says, with great emphasis, staring back at him. 

“Mhhm, I guess I forgot a spot,” Phil says, relenting. Dan’s trousers sit very low on his hips to begin with, spotted boxers clearly visible, and Phil doesn’t even have to undo the button to pull both of them down and exposing Dan completely. 

“Oh,” he says, cocking his head as he looks at Dan’s dick, which is very hard and very, very wet. Dan really wants to kick him, but restrains himself. “That really _does_ need kissing better, huh?” he says. 

He finally moves off Dan’s leg, but instead of doing anything else he just waits, looking at Dan expectantly. It takes Dan a moment to realise what Phil wants from him, and when he does he can’t even work up the energy to be indignant. “Please,” he says. 

Phil smiles at him, not a grin, a _smile_ , like he’s delighted with Dan’s existence, before ducking down to kiss the tip. Dan makes an almost pained noise. “ _Please_ ,” he repeats, and Phil finally takes pity. 

Dan has to lean up on his elbows to see, but it’s worth the view: Phil between his legs, black hair sticking up every which way, Dan’s dick all the way down his throat. Dan can’t stay upright for long though, slumping back down, and squeezing his eyes shut as Phil sucks him with fierce determination. Dan feels like he’s been hard _forever_ , and his willpower is threadbare. He bites down hard on his lip but it doesn’t help any to keep in his moans, thrusting up into Phil’s mouth, who is just letting him, throat going slack. It doesn’t take long at all for Dan to come, and he swears he feels his orgasm in his whole body, every spot that had a peg clipped to it tingling.

He just lies there, breathing heavily through his mouth, not opening his eyes for a moment as he tries to gather his thoughts enough to make words. 

“Holy shit. That was. You are _great_ at that,” he finally says, propping himself up on his elbows to look at Phil who has moved off Dan’s dick and is sitting back on his haunches, licking his lips. 

“You’re not so bad yourself,” he answers hoarsely. 

Dan opens his mouth to say that he _hasn’t done anything yet_ , but Phil interrupts him before he’s even started. “Just. Stay there?” he asks. 

“Are you gonna–?” Dan asks, making a vague motion that Phil somehow interprets correctly. 

“If that’s okay?” Phil says, already unzipping his trousers and pulling them down. All Dan can do is nod, transfixed by the sight of Phil’s cock, which is very nice and _very_ hard. 

Phil shuffles forwards a bit, sitting down on Dan’s thighs. He spits in his hand before wrapping it around himself, briefly closing his eyes as he sighs in relief, but opens them again quickly to look at Dan. 

Dan swears if he hadn’t just come harder than he had all his life, he’d get hard again watching Phil jerk off. Phil doesn’t take his eyes off Dan the entire time, not even when he comes, white strings landing on Dan’s stomach and chest. Dan was wrong before: this is the most intense experience of his life, which is saying something, considering.

Once he’s come, Phil immediately crawls forward onto Dan to kiss him, not bothering to pull his shirt off to save it. Dan wraps his arms around Phil’s shoulders, pulling him closer. Phil’s tastes salty and like Dan, and though Dan has never been the biggest fan of that himself, he moans appreciatively into the kiss. Then he starts to laugh. 

“What?” Phil asks, moving back just enough to speak, breath tickling Dan’s skin. 

“You ruined your shirt,” Dan gasps in between giggles. It’s not even that funny, he thinks he’s probably lightheaded and delirious. 

“Worth it,” Phil shrugs, kissing Dan again through his giggles until the laughter subsides. 

Eventually they do have to move though, the come cooling and getting sticky between them. 

“You go first, you need it more,” Phil says, climbing off Dan and pulling his ruined shirt off. “I’d shower with you, but we’d probably die.”

He goes to the dresser, having to carefully maneuver around the drying rack to get at it, pulling out a couple of towels and handing them to Dan, who follows after. 

The bathroom is just opposite the bedroom, and it’s tiny, barely a free square metre of floor space, including sink and toilet, and a shower of about the same size, to Dan’s right, so Phil wasn’t wrong about them dying if they tried to shower together. The water is hot though and the water pressure is good, much better than Dan’s own dorm’s showers. Dan is mindful to be a good guest and not use up all the hot water, so he finishes up quickly. 

When he gets out of the shower and wipes the condensation from the mirror, he can see red spots appearing all over his upper body where the pegs had been, and his nipples seem darker. He pinches one experimentally and hisses. His dick perks up and he smiles to himself before toweling off and putting his clothes back on. That particular experiment can wait for later. His hair is decidedly curly wet, and he’s dreading what it will look like when it dries like this. He contemplates whether it’s worth asking Phil to use his GHDs. 

He finds Phil in the kitchen, his washing machine running, presumably to save his shirt. “I ordered pizza, I hope pepperoni is fine? I got an extra large,” he says when Dan enters, and Dan nods. “If they come before I’m done showering, will you pay for it? There’s money on the counter,” he indicates the place next to the coffee machine. Dan recognises the tiny plastic Christmas tree next to it from the staff party.

After Phil leaves to shower, Dan is left to inspect the kitchen, the only room he hasn’t seen yet. It’s big enough to have both a dishwasher and a washing machine, though it could do with more counter space probably, and like the rest of the apartment that isn’t Phil’s room, it is a sad bluish-grey colour overall. 

Of course, Phil takes ages in the shower, and of course, he isn’t done yet by the time the doorbell rings. Dan can’t find an intercom or a buzzer, so he quickly grabs the money and his shoes and legs it down the stairs to the street door. 

The delivery man seems to know Phil rather well and isn’t expecting Dan there, giving Dan’s wet hair a knowing look. Dan is more embarrassed about the fact he’s seen it curly than that he knows he and Phil slept together, but his self-conscious face probably fails to convey that difference.

It’s only when he’s walking back up the stairs with the pizza that he realises he didn’t grab a key. And it turns out Phil’s apartment also doesn’t have a doorbell inside, so Dan is stuck hammering against the door and shouting for Phil for five minutes, glad Phil doesn’t have any neighbors, waiting to be let back in. 

When Phil finally opens the door he’s got one towel on his head, one around his hips, and one towel around his shoulders, though the purpose of the last one is unclear. 

Dan decides to let it slide for now in favour of more pressing concerns. “You don’t have a doorbell. Or a buzzer,” he says.

Phil makes an apologetic face. “Sorry, I should have warned you,” he says. “And given you a key,” he moves aside to let Dan in. 

“You are forgiven because pizza,” Dan tells him magnanimously. 

“You wanna eat it on the table like adults or on the bed?” Phil asks him, walking into his room to get dressed. Dan follows after him, setting the carton on the bed decisively.

“Your kitchen is depressing,” he says, watching Phil letting the towels drop to the floor unselfconsciously. He turns to rummage around in his dresser (apparently having moved the drying rack to the other side of the bed in Dan’s absence, where it’s now blocking the window) giving Dan a good view of his bare arse. 

“Nice,” Dan says, half to himself.

Phil turns around grinning. “Why are you dressed? I feel deprived.”

“Because I’m going to have an accident with hot cheese, probably.” You can say a lot about Dan, but he does know his karma. “And you’re not eating it from my naked body.”

Phil sighs exaggeratedly. “Then don’t give me ideas,” he says.

Dan still isn’t sure if this is just a one time thing. He kinda hopes not, but for now, he’s fine just waiting to see where things go.

“You can always eat not-hot things off me later, if you want,” he offers, only half-joking.

“Hmm, I think I have some ice cream in the freezer,” Phil says, eyes glittering with humor. “That could be interesting.”

Dan hopes very much he’s not joking. “Yeah, interesting,” he says, maybe a tad breathlessly. Phil just laughs. 

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask,” he says, after he’s finished getting dressed and they’ve sat down on the bed to eat. “Would you maybe want to be in my next video?”

Dan almost chokes on his pizza. “You’d– I mean, if you want me to? That’d be great, honestly,” he answers, once he’s not coughing anymore. 

“Awesome,” Phil says, smiling brightly. “My subscribers are dying to meet you.”

“Oh god,” Dan says, but it’s more excited than apprehensive. He’s maybe always wanted to be a Youtuber, even though he never had the courage to try. He can’t believe how well this day is going, considering how badly it had started. 

Dan ends up sleeping over, sticky with ice cream, among other things, and unwilling to shower. He doesn’t wake up in time for his lecture the next day, but finds he doesn’t care at all. 

-

Two weeks later, Dan is at the coffee shop, working a solo evening shift because thesis hell is killing Phil, who is texting increasingly incoherent updates on his 23 hour writing sprint. Dan texts back when he can about annoying or funny customers as per Phil’s request, hoping it’s less a distraction and more a much needed break for his brain. 

It’s been a fairly quiet evening so far, thankfully, and he’s just finished refilling the coffee maker, already thinking about bringing Phil some takeout later and perhaps even convince him to sleep, when a female voice sounds from behind him. “Um, sorry?”

Dan turns around, smiling an extra bright smile, hoping she’ll leave quickly. “Yes?”

“Um, it says at the door that you are hiring?” She’s tiny and blonde and fiddling with the tassels of her scarf nervously. 

Dan can’t believe his luck. If possible, his smile turns even wider. He hopes he won’t scare her off if he starts maniacally cackling or something. 

“Yes, we are. I, um,” he pauses briefly, “I’m not technically allowed to hire anyone, but if you want to work a probationary shift, I can put in a word with the manager?”

“Oh, um, sure that’d be great,” she says, smiling back. 

“Would now be fine for you?” Dan asks, “or if you’re busy, you could give us your number and we’ll call you in sometime.” He realises that sounds very much like he’s hitting on her, but he guesses that is the point. Flies, honey, it had worked for Phil. Though Dan isn’t really planning for this to work in _quite_ the same way.

“No, now is fine,” she says. She’s either not realised, or she’s not interested. Dan is fine with both of those options, as long as she’s staying. 

“Okay, let me get you an apron,” he says, grabbing his phone on the way to the back to get it. He’s technically not supposed to have it out front at all, but since he’s working alone, there’s no one to stop him. 

_Found our next victim_ he texts Phil, providing no context whatsoever. Phil will understand.

**Author's Note:**

> Say hi on [tumblr](http://popsongnation.tumblr.com/) if you like!


End file.
